After serving writers and authors for the past eight years, it is rewarding and gratifying to be listed with the greats in publishing on SIBA’s 2018 Southern Book Prize. Our thanks to author J.C. Sasser for helping get us on this list. It was a very lucky and blessed day when we received her manuscript. Whether she wins this prize or not… she already won. And so have we.

 

Here is the list sorted by publisher:

Algonquin:
Young Jane Young by Zevin
The Second Mrs. Hockaday by Rivers

Candlewick:
Between Two Skies by O’Sullivan

Counterpoint:
The Art of Loading Brush by Berry

Disney:
Serafina and the Splintered Heart by Beatty

Hachette:
Lee Boudreaux, Desperation Road by Smith

HarperCollins:
Goldeline by Cajoleas
Wm Mo, Same Beach, Next Year by Frank
Wm Mo, The Last Ballad by Cash
Ecco, No One is Coming to Save Us by Watts
Balzer/Bray, The Hate U Give by Thomas
HarperPerennial, The Sunshine State by Gerard

Henry Holt:
 My Life, My Love, My Legacy by King/Reynolds

Koehler Books:
Gradle Bird by Sasser

Penguin Random House:
Ballantine, Before We Were Yours by Wingate
Berkley Books, The Bookshop at Water’s End by Henry
Berkley Books, The Night the Lights Went Out by White
GP Putnam, The Weight of this World by Joy
GP Putnam BFYR, Flame in the Mist by Ahdieh
Doubleday, Camino Island by Grisham
Dial Books, Tumble & Blue by Beasley
Crown Books FYR, Dear Martin by Stone
Penguin Press, The Potlikker Papers by Edge

Persea Books:
The Virginia State Colony by Brown

St. Marin’s Press:
The River of Kings by Brown
Tears We Cannot Stop by Dyson

Scholastic:
Refugee by Gratz

Simon & Schuster:
Scribners, Sing, Unburied, Sing by Ward
Sarah Crichton, The Devil’s Muse by Loehfelm
Touchstone, The last Castle by Kiernan

WW Norton:
Heating & Cooling by Fennelly
Thunder in the Mountains by Sharfstein

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Fifteen-year-old Gradle Bird has lived her entire life with her Grandpa, Leonard, at a seedy motel and truck stop off Georgia’s I-16. But when Leonard moves her to a crumbling old house rumored to be haunted by the ghost of Ms. Annalee Spivey, Gradle is plunged into a lush, magical world much stranger and more dangerous than the one she came from.

Here she meets Sonny Joe Stitch, a Siamese Fighting Fish connoisseur overdosed on testosterone, a crippled, Bible-thumping hobo named Ceif “Tadpole” Walker, and the only true friend she will ever know, a schizophrenic genius, music-man, and professional dumpster-diver, D-5 Delvis Miles. As Gradle falls deeper into Delvis’s imaginary and fantastical world, unsettling dangers lurk, and when surfaced, Gradle discovers unforeseen depths in herself and the people she loves the most.

Gradle Bird is an unusual tale of self-discovery and redemption that explores the infirmities of fatherly love, the complexities of human cruelty, and the consequences of guilt, proving they are possible to overcome no matter how dark and horrible the cause.

Pages: 256
Pub Date: 06-15-2017
Softcover: 17.95 978-1-63393-263-0
Hardcover: 28.95 978-1-63393-265-4
Ebook: 7.99 978-1-63393-264-7

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
J.C. Sasser started her professional career at age twelve, working as a dishwasher, waitress, and cook at a truck stop off Georgia’s I-16. Over her life, she has worked as an envelope licker, tortoise tagger, lifeguard, Senate page, model, editor, water-polo coach, marine biologist, plant grower, software consultant, and 6-Sigma Black Belt. Gradle Bird, was a short list finalist in the 2015 William Faulkner-William Wisdom novel competition, and her other writing credits include the short story and screenplay, The Pigeon Catcher (Ceiba Productions 2002). She lives in an old barn on Edisto Island, SC with her husband, Thomas, along with their two sons, T.C. and Robert Esten, and two dogs, Cro and Blue Moon June. Gradle Bird is her first novel.   Visit author website