

Dahlonega
Literary Festival
An Annual Celebration of Readers, Writers, and Books
William Rawlings
William Rawlings was born, raised and lives in Sandersville, Georgia, home to his family for more than two centuries. He was educated at Emory, Tulane, and Johns Hopkins Universities. A prolific writer of "Southern stories," the Columbus Stocking Strangler is his twelfth book and sixth work of non-fiction. His books consistently garner excellent reviews, and he has been the recipient of several writing awards. One constant theme in Rawlings's writing is a well-defined sense of place, especially in relation to the landscape of rural Georgia. He states, “One of life’s greatest pageants is the continuity of life in small Southern towns. Characters wander in and out, plying their intrigues and playing their roles, both major and minor. There’s hardly a need for fiction, as the truth is oftentimes more bizarre. What more inspiration could a writer ask for?”
Learn more at williamrawlings.com.
The Columbus Stocking Strangler
During an eight-month period in 1977 and 1978, the city of Columbus, Georgia, was terrorized by a mysterious serial killer who raped and strangled seven elderly women in one of the community's finer neighborhoods. This convoluted tale of crime and punishment is punctuated by dramatic and unexpected twists and turns. Following a dramatic trial in August 1986, Carlton Gary was convicted of three of the murders and sentenced to death, a penalty finally carried out in March 2018.
