Content area
Full Text
Southern Gothic writing continues to flourish in its contemporary offshoot known as Grit Lit. Noted for its raw sensibility, Grit Lit captures a landscape of harsh realities, a rowdy world where mud tires and marijuana prevail over moonlight and magnolia. Barry Hannah, Larry Brown, and Harry Crews are frequently lauded as pioneers of the Grit Lit genre. But while the rural South is still the common stomping ground for these writers, characters in Grit Lit stories and novels are more likely to be passed out on a cinderblock bar than reclining on the porch of a columned plantation. More often than not, too, characters in Grit Lit are victims of extreme poverty and suffer brutal violence with determination and dignity. Following in the footpaths of Hannah, Brown, and Crews, Tom Franklin and Chris Offutt have emerged as leading voices in this genre. Both prolific writers, Franklin coedited the widely-praised anthology Grit Lit: A Rough South Reader (2012) to which Offutt contributed his signature story "Melungeons."
Franklin, who, has published two historical novels set in Alabama, Hell at the Breech (2003) and Smonk (2006), plus a country noir set in Mississippi, - Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter (2010) which was nominated for the Edgar Award. His stories have also been included in The New Granta Book of the American Short Story, New Stories from the South, Best American Mystery Stories, and Best Mystery Stories of the Century. Born in Dickinson, Alabama, Franklin attended the University of South Alabama in Mobile where he earned a B.A. in English. After working various jobs, including a stint as a heavy equipment operator in a grit factory, he earned an M.F.A. in fiction from the University of Arkansas in 1998. Currently, he teaches creative writing at the University of Mississippi.
Chris Offutt has published three collections of short stories- Kentucky Straight (1992), Out of the Woods (1999), and Luck (2011); two memoirs, The Same River Twice (1993) and No Heroes (2002), plus a novel, The Good Brother (1997). He has also written for two HBO series, Treme and True Blood, and Showtime's Weeds and in 1996 was listed in Granta s 20 Best Young Fiction Writers. His stories have been anthologized in Best American Short Stories and New Stories of the...