We asked Dr. Charlotte Pence, the Poet Laureate of Mobile, for her five favorite books set in Mobile.

Charlotte Pence is Mobile, Alabama’s inaugural poet laureate. Author of two full-length poetry books, two award-winning chapbooks, a composition handbook, and editor of The Poetics of American Song Lyrics, Dr. Charlotte Pence is the director of the Stokes Center for Creative Writing at the University of South Alabama. Recent honors include a Patterson Fellowship from Vanderbilt University, a Sewanee Writers’ Conference fellowship, and a feature on The Slow Down. Other awards and fellowships include an individual poetry fellowship from Alabama Council for the Arts, Tennessee Arts Commission, the Redden Fund, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, the Alvin H. Nielson Memorial Fund, the Discovered Voices Award, the New Millennium Writing Award, multiple Pushcart nominations and many other honors. Her poetry and and creative nonfiction have been published in Alaska Quarterly, Epoch, Harvard Review, Kenyon Review Online, North American Review, Denver Quarterly, Passages North, Rattle, Prairie Schooner, Southern Review, Poetry and many other journals and podcasts. Learn more at charlottepence.com.

Like Trees, Walking by Ravi Howard

Based on the true story of Michael Donald’s 1981 lynching in Mobile, this novel follows the emotional aftermath of two brothers who were called to bury their beloved classmate. While this novel focuses on national issues such as terrorism and racial inequalities in the “New South,” it also investigates the impact of such trauma in the characters’ daily lives.

Eveningland: Stories by Michael Knight

Author Michael Knight, raised in Mobile, so deliciously describes the landscape and waterways of Mobile that we can almost feel the outboard vibrating under our feet. A craftsman of the short story, Knight deftly dramatizes an evening of quiet discontent or the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill with equal nuance.

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This nonfiction triumph recounts a series of interviews Hurston began in 1927 with Cudjo Lewis, who was one of the last survivors of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Hurston took great care to preserve Cudjo’s voice as he recounted his capture into slavery, arrival into Mobile, and formation of Africatown after slavery ended.

The Untidy Pilgrim by Eugene Walter

Known for his larger-than-life personality, Eugene Walter sets his first novel in Mobile, where the insularity and idiosyncrasy of the town is on full display. A young man travels from mid-Alabama to Mobile to establish himself, but instead of encountering a Puritan work ethic, he finds people who aren’t so concerned with “doing,” but “being.”

Let Us Imagine Her Name by Sue Brannan Walker

I can’t have a list without some poetry in it—and who better to highlight than Mobilian Sue Brannan Walker, former Alabama poet laureate. Her most recent collection Let Us Imagine Her Name isn’t so much set in Mobile, but imbued with its sensibilities as the collection explores the intersections of language, identity, and gender.