Judith Richards

Summer Lightning

Triple Indemnity

Nine-year-old Thelonious Monk DeCay lives in New Orleans' Lower Ninth Ward with his grandmother. His mother dead and father missing, Monk is determined to find his father. With their harmonicas and bottle-cap taps, Monk and his best friend entertain tourists in Jackson Square under the watchful eyes of eccentric historian Quinton Toussaint, who knows where to find Monk's father. Hurricane Katrina changes everything. Left homeless and alone after the storm, Monk befriends a deranged man and survives by sneaking across the rooftops and courtyards of the French Quarter, stealing food and supplies while hiding from both a murderer and the police. In the midst of the storm and its aftermath, a woman Monk has never met appears in New Orleans with answers to his questions about his long-lost father.

Thelonious Rising

Irrepressible Terrell Calder is a cigarette-smoking, lunch trading, school skipping six-year old boy growing up in a migrant work camp during the last days of the Great Depression under growing rumors of World War II. Son of the camp manager, Terry has no interest in school, and instead is drawn into an unlikely friendship with Mr. McCree, an eccentric old man living in the cracks of civilization. Together they prowl the Everglades in search of rattlesnakes, epiphytes, and adventure, until the law and society change their lives forever. Based on a true story the award-winning Summer Lightning has been reprinted in 15 languages since its first publication in 1978.

Every family has its shameful secrets, but none more so than those of the Lee family. Aramenta Lee escaped her controlling mother by moving to Paris thirty years ago. Her quiet life there is shattered by a terse wire: AM DYING - COME HOME - MOTHER. Aramenta arrives in Mobile, Alabama just hours prior to her mother's death. She wants nothing more than to quickly settle the estate and escape family ties, but finds herself thwarted by a macabre secret her mother has held for thirty years.

The Sounds of Silence

Jim Wilson

Scott Owens

Baynard Woods

Michael Knight

Chuck Jones

George Singleton

Shari Smith

Susan Cushman

Greg Herren

Wendy Reed

Suzanne Hudson

Jennifer Horne

Jennifer Paddock

Chuck Cannon

Ed Southern

Joe Formichella

Lari White

Michael Reno Harrell

Bev Marshall

Marlin Barton

Janet Nodar

The first Shoe Burnin' occurred on a cold winter's night years ago in Alabama. When the firewood ran out, a box of old shoes provided the assembled group of friends and artists with the fuel they needed to stock the hearth and share stories and songs late into the night. The bond forged that night began a tradition of fireside Shoe Burnin's. Naturally, many of the stories and songs involved shoes -- the places they've been and the people who wore them. Now, for the first time, these works have been collected in The Shoe Burnin', Stories of Southern Soul. The hardcover book includes a companion CD of spoken word and music that captures the Southern soul.

Stories of Southern Soul

The Shoe Burnin'

Judith Richards

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