Join us for a reading with Chelyen Davis and Jody Hobbs Hesler, who will read from their stories in New Stories from the South 2026. This in-person event will be free and open to the public. We recommend arriving early for the best seating.
About the Anthology: New Stories from the South 2026 is the revival of an iconic anthology of best Southern short stories featuring eminent and emerging voices, with an introduction by Appalachian writer Silas House. It marks the much-anticipated return of the annual story collection, gathering outstanding short stories written by Southern writers or about the American South. Stories were nominated by editors of literary journals and magazines, publishers of short story collections, and by prominent Southern writers who served as contributing editors for this volume.
About Chelyen Davis: Chelyen Davis has worked as a political journalist and speechwriter to governors and educators. Her fiction, essays, and poems have appeared in publications such as Appalachian Review, Still: The Journal, Anthology of Appalachian Writers, Untelling, and Brown Hound Press. A native of Southwest Virginia, she lives in Richmond, Virginia. Her debut collection of short stories, Cannonball, is forthcoming from the University Press of Kentucky in 2027.
About Jody Hobbs Hesler: Jody Hobbs Hesler is the author of the novel Without You Here, winner of the 2025 Independent Press Award for Literary Fiction, and the story collection What Makes You Think You’re Supposed to Feel Better. Her short fiction, essays, book reviews, and author interviews also appear in TriQuarterly, Swing, South Dakota Review, The Pinch, The Rumpus, Electric Literature, Pithead Chapel, CRAFT, North American Review, The Georgia Review, and elsewhere. She teaches at WriterHouse in Charlottesville, Virginia, and serves as assistant fiction editor for The Los Angeles Review.
