The Alabama Writers’ Forum
The Alabama Writers’ Forum, a partnership program of the Alabama State Council on the Arts, works to cultivate our state’s literary culture. We do that through supporting writers at all stages. We encourage our young writers to find their creative voice through the Father Goose Poetry Festival for Kids!–and through our Alabama High School Literary Arts Awards. We support the work of our state’s literary community through our Alabama Authors Directory, First Draft magazine, and other programming and opportunities for writers across the state. And we celebrate our state’s rich literary legacy through the Alabama Writers Hall of Fame. We are, above all, a community of writers united by our desire to advance the literary arts in Alabama. If that describes you — join us! There are many ways to get involved.
Backwaters
Backwaters By Lee Rozelle Montag Press, 2024 Paper: $17.95 Genre: Fiction; Horror; Science Fiction; Bizarro Reviewed by Polly Schattel Just when you thought all the brackish, muddy water could finally be wrung from the wet old raiments of the genre known as “southern gothic,” along comes Lee Rozelle’s interconnected series of short stories and a novelette called Backwaters: Twelve Murky Tales. Rozelle brings a freshness of vision and a unique, inventive approach to this disturbing mosaic of a lake town in working-class Alabama caught in the swirl of eco-pollution and strange cults. It’s as if Flannery O’Connor had written the pilot for Stranger Things. Along with the typical tropes of small-town southern lit—barbershops, pickup trucks, swampy outbacks—there are signs of a changing world: yoga classes, college towns, Mexican restaurants, brain surgery laboratories. Elements of science fiction and body horror burst into Rozelle’s intricate narrative, along with touches of the curious outsider genre known as “Bizarro.” Using metaphors, dreamlike narratives, and incongruous genre elements much in the manner of filmmaker David Lynch, bizarro fiction has its roots in [...]
