JoeyPinkney.com Exclusive Interview
5 Minutes, 5 Questions With…
Valerie Stocking, author of Southern Strife
(SJT Press)

Southern Strife gives us a complex but tightly woven plot in which twelve-year-old Joy, newly moved to northern Florida in the custody of her divorcing mother and having as yet no friends, is in the process of building a friendship with a biracial boy at school, Clay.

She is unaware that the area, so close to Alabama and the drama of Montgomery, is a hotbed of the KKK. Meanwhile, Joy’s mother, Jessica, has fallen in love with her lawyer, Bill McKendrick, who is a leader in the KKK. As both relationships deepen, the tension is stretched to an almost unbearable degree.

Joey Pinkney: Where did you get the inspiration to write Southern Strife?

Valerie Stocking: Between 1966 and 1967, I lived with my mother in a small town on the west coast of Florida. My experiences there inspired the book, Continue reading 5 Minutes, 5 Questions With… Valerie Stocking, author of Southern Strife →