New literary journal China Grove launches August 28, and will feature a previously unseen letter from Mark Twain regarding an unpublished work called “The Great Republic’s Peanut Stand." The journal will also feature an exclusive interview with Ellen Gilchrist, and a love letter from Pulitzer Prize winner Eudora Welty to crime fiction writer Kenneth Millar. The journal's name comes from the Eudora Welty short story, “Why I Live at the P. O.”
Edited by Dr. Scott Anderson, MD, and Dr. Luke Lampton, MD, the journal will pair fiction from new writers alongside literary giants like Twain. Anderson said: “Our goal is to give talented newcomers a chance to be published next to legends, and to see the history of what it is they’ve chosen to pursue as a vocation.”
Two issues will be published in 2014, with forthcoming issues running quarterly in subsequent years. Each issue will feature an interview with a renowned Mississippi author. Submissions are accepted for unpublished short fiction, poetry, and essays. The journal will award two literary prizes: The Gilchrist Prize in Short Fiction given biannually starting Fall 2014 with a prize of $2,000, and The China Grove Prize in Poetry in 2015.
