Southern Voices from the Past: Zora Neale Hurston
[Zora Neale Hurston’s] novels spoke about the African-American experience, folklore, and her personal struggles as an African-American woman.
Mike recalls his early childhood days living in College Park, when on many warm Sunday afternoons his father drove the family beyond Stone Mountain to his Great-Uncle’s farm on the then dust-filled, red clay back roads of Snellville, GA. He fondly recalls the bite of barb-wire pasture fences, sipping cool well-water from a ladle, and getting scrubbed in a washtub near the front stoop of Uncle Kerry’s and Aunt Monk’s farmhouse. The Brown family date well back in Georgia’s history, and had settled mainly in Gwinnett and Walton Counties in the early 1800s. Several of Mike’s ancestors lost their lives and lands following Georgia’s secession in 1861. Most prominently, Wiley Waters Webb, Sr., Mike’s triple great grandfather, committed suicide after three of his sons died during the war and Sherman’s Army swept in and confiscated his property in 1864. Mike’s great-grandfather, grandfather and father all carried the name Wiley. Since 2017, he has published three Shiloh Mystery novels: Sanctuary, A Legacy of Memories; Testament, An Unexpected Return; and Purgatory, A Progeny's Quest. His fourth and most recent published book is a historical novel, The Last Laird of Sapelo, which launched August 15, 2023, published by Koehler Books. A common theme throughout all his stories stems from the truth his pop and poppa exemplified and taught him, growing up in Georgia and Florida. “The testament of a man lies not in the magnitude of possessions and property left to his heirs, but the reach of his legacy long after his death.” Mike is a member of Atlanta Writers Club, Southeastern Writers Association, and American Christian Fiction Writers Association, Newnan Coweta Historical Society, founding President of Hometown Novel Writers Association based in Newnan, GA. and a Board Member of the Newnan Carnegie Library Foundation, Newnan, GA.
[Zora Neale Hurston’s] novels spoke about the African-American experience, folklore, and her personal struggles as an African-American woman.
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