Freebie, today only!!

Just a quick note... You can get my collection of short stories, Up Pops the Devil, for FREE until midnight tonight (Pacific Standard time).

The collection takes place in North Carolina, Vietnam, and on a subway carriage. In "Up Pops the Devil," pregnant Lara awakes in the middle of the night to find a group of men with guns standing in her bedroom. Her husband Nathan owes them money for cockfighting. On impulse, she flees into the mountains, taking the youngest (a teenage boy) with her. In "The Mood Detectives," a couple becomes obsessed with the depression craze that's hitting the country! In "What's for Dinner?" an insensitive husband wonders why he keeps drawing The Devil tarot card. And in "Viet," a teenage girl visits her mother's homeland of Vietnam and makes a surprising discovery. The characters in this collection confront unfortunate choices, bad luck, and plain old destiny, hoping to make it to the next day.

Just go here:  http://www.amazon.com/Up-Pops-the-Devil-ebook/dp/B00DP77PVC

"Folk Fiction"

I'm reading The Welsh Healer by Ginger Myrick, a novel set in 15th Century Wales and England during the Hundred Years' War. Myrick delves into Welsh herbal medicine, mystical healing, family customs, and many other aspects of the Welsh culture. In trying to describe the novel on Twitter (yes, I'm addicted!), I thought of the terms "historical fiction" and, perhaps more apt, "folk fiction." Because that's what The Welsh Healer is really about -- the customs, the beliefs and superstitions, the character of 15th-Century Welsh people.

And I got to thinking... Southern fiction is also folk fiction. What is it many of us really value about Southern literature? The fact that it describes the culture of the South, the people, the traditions, the food, the values ... all those things that Myrick also discusses in The Welsh Healer. So, why haven't I heard the term "folk fiction" bantered about in literary circles? Am I just out of the loop? Has anyone else heard of this genre? Should it be a genre? I sure think so! And should we differentiate between "Southern folk fiction" and other types?