Local Authors
Writers Live Everywhere. Even Here.
Jo Hackl
Smack Dab in the Middle of Maybe (2019)
Jo Hackl grew up just outside a ghost town in rural Mississippi where storytelling is a favorite form of entertainment. She spent her childhood exploring the piney woods, inventing characters, and creating tiny worlds out of acorns, rocks, sticks and moss. Now, she lives with her husband, children, and Pupper, who just happens to closely resemble the character of Percy in the book. She writes stories next to a window overlooking the woods. She is also a lawyer with Wyche, PA., whose lawyers have worked to preserve over 100,000 acres of land for future generations. Smack Dab in the Middle of Maybe, published by Random House Children’s Books, is her debut!
Scott Gould
THINGS THAT CRASH, THINGS THAT FLY (2021); WHEREABOUTS (2020); STRANGERS TO TEMPTATION (2017)
Scott Gould was born, raised and still lives in South Carolina. And he’s a big supporter of M. Judson, coming by often. His first book, Strangers to Temptation—a linked story collection the Atlanta Journal Constitution called “a compulsive read” and Foreword Reviews dubbed “funny, often poignant, and not easily forgotten”—was published by Hub City Press in 2017. Of his debut novel, Whereabouts (Koehler Books), the Atlanta Journal Constitution said, the book is “distinctly Southern but gritty, without a whiff of moonlight and magnolias.” Gould’s memoir, Things That Crash, Things That Fly (Vine Leaves Press), was released in March of 2021, and a new novel, The Hammerhead Chronicles, will be published by the University of North Georgia Press in early 2022. His fiction and nonfiction have appeared in Kenyon Review, New Stories from the South, Black Warrior Review, Carolina Quarterly, Pithead Chapel, Garden & Gun, New Ohio Review, Crazyhorse and The Bitter Southerner, among others. He is a two-time winner of the S.C. Arts Commission’s Individual Artist Fellowship in Prose and the S.C. Academy of Authors Fiction Fellowship. He lives in Sans Souci, South Carolina with a cat and a dog, and teaches creative writing at the S.C. Governor’s School for the Arts & Humanities. He is always pulling for the Braves.
Ashley Warlick
The Arrangement (2016); Seek the Living (2006); The Summer After June (2000); Distance from the Heart of Things (1996)
Meet our Book Buyer and resident novelist, Ashley Warlick. If you wonder how we have such an amazing selection of curated titles in store, she’s the reason why. Ashley is a reader, a writer, a published author, a teacher, and someone who knows the industry inside and out, but she’d rather sit down with a bottle of wine, a well-cooked meal, and listen to all your stories than talk about herself.
Ashley is the author of four novels; the most recent, The Arrangement, was published in 2016. The recipient of an NEA Fellowship and the Houghton Mifflin Literary Fellowship, her work has appeared in The Oxford American, McSweeney’s, Redbook, and Garden and Gun, among others; and she regularly contributes to TOWN Magazine. She has taught fiction in the MFA program at Queens University in Charlotte, North Carolina for 18 years, while also working as a partner and buyer at M. Judson Booksellers since its inception.
Lynne Lucas
Renaissance Man: The Life of Tommy Wyche
“Lynne has done an outstanding job in documenting my father’s full and amazing life,” said Brad Wyche, Tommy’s son.
The late Tommy Wyche founded and led Naturaland Trust, South Carolina’s second oldest land trust, in championing the 40-year initiative that resulted in the protection of over 100,000 acres of the South Carolina mountains, which today include Caesars Head State Park, Jones Gap State Park and Jocassee Gorges. In addition, he was one of the key leaders in the revitalization of downtown Greenville. Tommy had an astonishing range of hobbies and talents, including photography, writing, piano, tennis, patented inventions, beekeeping, hiking and canoeing.
As for Lynne Lucas, before starting her own eco-friendly garden design and installation company in 2003, Lucas was a staff writer, copy editor and columnist for The Greenville News for 25 years. This 339-page book, commissioned by Tommy’s children, explores his contributions to conservation, the City of Greenville’s amazing transformation, the Wyche law firm, and advocacy for the arts. It also includes a foreword by former Governor Dick Riley, many family stories, insights into his one-of-a-kind personality, and dozens of color photographs.