University Of South Carolina Press: 384 books

Once deemed the "custodian of the twilight zone" by Southern Living, celebrated storyteller and ghost hunter Nancy Roberts returns to familiar subject matter in this newly expanded edition of her Ghosts of the Wild West, a finalist for the Spur Award of the Western Writers of America in...

Since the release of her first novel, The Last Day the Dogbushes Bloomed, in 1968, Lee Smith has published nearly twenty books, including novels, short stories, and memoirs. She has received an O. Henry Award, Sir Walter Raleigh Award, Robert Penn Warren Prize for Fiction, and a Reader’s Digest...

Among the most celebrated American poets of the past half century, Adrienne Rich was the recipient of awards ranging from the Bollingen Prize, to the National Book Award, to the Lannan Lifetime Achievement Award. In Understanding Adrienne Rich, Jeannette E. Riley assesses the full scope of Rich’s...

Ever since his first novel, Fight Club, was made into a cult film by David Fincher, Chuck Palahniuk has been a consistent presence on the New York Times best-seller list. A target of critics but a fan favorite, Palahniuk has been loathed and loved in equal measure for his dark humor, edgy topics,...

Award-winning writer and journalist Francisco Goldman is the author of novels and works of nonfiction and is a regular contributor to the New Yorker magazine. His awards include the Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction and the T. R. Fyvel Book Award, as well as a Guggenheim Fellowship. Born to a Guatemalan...

In Understanding Alice Adams, Bryant Mangum examines the thematic intricacies and astute social commentary of Adams’s eleven novels and five short story collections. Throughout her career Adams was known for creating and re-creating the “Alice Adams woman,” who is bright, honest, attractive,...

Grounded in feminism, political activism, and Jewish spirituality, Marge Piercy’s work includes more than thirty volumes of poetry, as well as fiction written over nearly five decades. Her poetry fuses political, domestic, and autobiographical spheres with imagery drawn from nature, sensual and...

Since the early 1980s, Jim Grimsley has received increasing acclaim for his achievements in a variety of dramatic and literary genres. Through his novels, plays, and short stories, Grimsley portrays an unrelenting search for happiness and interrogates themes of corruption, technology, poverty, domestic...

Understanding Diane Johnson is a biographical and critical study of a quintessential American novelist who has devoted forty-five years to writing about French and American culture. Johnson, who was nominated for the National Book Award three times and the Pulitzer Prize twice, has been a regular...

Understanding Dave Eggers is the first book-length study incorporating Egger’s novels, short-story collections, and films by surveying thematic and stylistic developments in the work of one of the most celebrated American authors of the twenty-first century. Timothy W. Galow offers a textual analysis...

Among the many gifted African American authors who emerged in the 1970s and 80s, John Edgar Wideman is one of the most challenging and innovative. His analytical mind can turn almost any topic into an intellectual adventure, whether it is playground basketball, the blues, the prison experience, father-son...

In Understanding Edward P. Jones, James W. Coleman analyzes Jones’s award-winning works as well as the significant influences that have shaped his craft. Born and raised in Washington, D.C., Jones has made that city and its African American community the subject of or background for most of his...

The charismatic movement that began in the first century currently spans the globe. The term "charismatic" refers to the "gifts of the Holy Spirit"—speaking in tongues, healing, prophecy, and discernment—said to be available to Christians who have surrendered their lives to...

Award-winning nature writer John Leland offers a collection of twenty-seven short, poetic essays that marry science and the humanities as the author seeks meaning in trees. Readings in Wood is an investigation of trees and forests and also of wood as a material that people have found essential in...