Songbirds and Stray Dogs

In Songbirds and Stray Dogs, Jolene has been abandoned by her addict mother on the steps of her spinster aunt's door at eight years old. She's spent the last thirteen years living in the shadow of the pain her mother caused and trying to prove herself worthy of her aunt's stingy love. Unintentionally she becomes pregnant. When the father refuses her and her aunt kicks her out, Jolene tries to outrun her shame by heading to the mountains. Homeless, penniless, alone, and chased by demons from her past, she makes friends who help and hinder. She is forced to confront exactly who she is, what she wants, and what she is willing to do to get it. Geography and a sense of place are central to Songbirds and Stray Dogs. It is a Southern story, born of sweet tea and the Bible Belt, chow-chow and cornbread, shotguns and porch rocking. But it is also a universal story of escaping the burden of your past and finding yourself at home in a strange land.

In Songbirds and Stray Dogs, Jolene has been abandoned by her addict mother on the steps of her spinster aunt's door at eight years old. She's spent the last thirteen years living in the shadow of the pain her mother caused and trying to prove herself worthy of her aunt's stingy love. Unintentionally she becomes pregnant. When the father refuses her and her aunt kicks her out, Jolene tries to outrun her shame by heading to the mountains. Homeless, penniless, alone, and chased by demons from her past, she makes friends who help and hinder. She is forced to confront exactly who she is, what she wants, and what she is willing to do to get it. Geography and a sense of place are central to Songbirds and Stray Dogs. It is a Southern story, born of sweet tea and the Bible Belt, chow-chow and cornbread, shotguns and porch rocking. But it is also a universal story of escaping the burden of your past and finding yourself at home in a strange land.

Meagan Lucas is the author of the novel Songbirds and Stray Dogs. Her short work has appeared in: The Santa Fe Writer's Project, The New Southern Fugitives, Still: The Journal, and The Blue Mountain Review among others. She has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and she won the 2017 Scythe Prize for Fiction. Meagan teaches English Composition at Asheville-Buncombe Technical Community College, and is the Fiction Editor at Barren Magazine. She lives with her husband and children in Hendersonville, NC.