Meagan Lucas is the author of Songbirds and Stray Dogs (Main Street Rag, 2019). 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. Taylor Brown says Meagan is: “a brave new voice in Southern Fiction,” and Steph Post describes Meagan as: “the very definition of a badass, female grit lit author.” 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. Read more, or connect with Meagan on Social Media, here: https://linktr.ee/meaganlucas

Songbirds & Stray Dogs

"Quite possibly my favorite debut novel of the year. Songbirds and Stray Dogs has everything I love about Southern fiction-atmosphere, a deep attention to place and, most importantly, tough, unforgettable characters, spearheaded by the indomitable Jolene. Meagan Lucas is the very definition of a badass, female grit lit author." - Steph Post, (LitReactor Staff Picks Best Books of 2019)

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.