Yoknawpatawpha Press

Publishing Oxford, MS

  • Home
  • Books
  • Authors
  • Prints
  • Blog
  • Contact Us

2 books celebrating Dale County, Alabama, 200th Anniversary

September 15, 2024 By Lawrence Wells

“Claybank Memories: A History of Dale County, Alabama,” by Val L. McGee, was first published by the Dale County Historical Society during the 1989 “Alabama Reunion” project. The book is rich in information that otherwise might have been overlooked or lost. In celebration of the Dale County 200th anniversary, Sept. 26, 2024, “Claybank Memories” has been re-issued in a commemorative paperback edition. In these pages, future generations of Dale Countians will be introduced to the spirit of the “Wiregrass” area they call home.

In “Claybank Memories,” McGee presents anecdotes and stories about Dale County, starting with the wild feud between Ozark and Newton for the permanent location of the county seat. Raiding parties from the rival communities burned down both towns’ courthouses! McGee recounts the coming of the first train, the lighting of Ozark with electric streetlamps, the opening of the first “Theatorium” or movie house and the excitement of the first plane buzzing the rooftops. Readers can vicariously “cheer from the sidelines” as Dale County High beats Dothan in football for the first time and then be embarrassed when the Dale County band deserts the bleachers because nobody knows how to play the national anthem. McGee records the landing of the first plane at the newly constructed Napier Field, the initial broadcast of WOZK-radio in 1953, the first class to graduate at Wallace Junior College and the elopement and marriage in Ozark, by a justice of the peace, of Paul (Bear) Bryant and Mary Harmon Black. Longtime residents of Dale County stand out in “Claybank Memories,” pioneer families like the Dowlings, Matthews, Carrolls, Adams, and Holmans, who lived in Dale County and helped lead the community. One of the most prominent leaders, McGee points out, was Ozark’s mayor, Douglas Brown, who took a stand in favor of civil rights during the 1960s when it was political suicide to do so.

414 pages, illustrated with 60 b and w photos, ISBN 9780916242954, $24.95 (Distributed by Yoknapatawpha Press)

Claybank Memories A History of Dale County, Alabama: A History of Dale County, Alabama: McGee, Val L.: 9780916242954


“THE ORIGINS OF FORT RUCKER,” by Val L. McGee

The story of Fort Rucker, Alabama (renamed Fort Novosel) begins during the Great Depression. In 1935, Ozark congressman Henry B. Steagall—confidante of President Franklin D. Roosevelt—and local county agent Doug Thomason, along with newspaper editor Jesse B. Adams, persuaded the Department of the Interior to purchase 35,000 acres of land in Dale and Coffee counties. Nicknamed “The Bear Farm,” this huge tract of land where Confederate soldiers trained in 1861 became the nucleus of Camp Rucker, constructed in 1942 and named after Confederate General Edmund W. Rucker. Today, Fort Novosel is a major U.S. military installation, vital to the life and economy of the Wiregrass section of Alabama.

Author Val McGee (1920-2015), a Dale County, Alabama, district judge and native of the Wiregrass region of South Alabama, was stationed at Camp Rucker during World War II before transferring with the 66th Infantry Division to the European Theatre of Operations.

204 pages, illustrated with 60 b and w photos, ISBN 9780916242961, $19.95 (Distributed by Yoknapatawpha Press)

Filed Under: Blog

FAIR YOUTH, a novel by Lawrence Wells

June 3, 2024 By Yoknapatawpha Press

Fair Youth, a fictional sequel to Wells’ new memoir “Ghostwriter” (University Press of Mississippi, 2024) is the novel that Wells ghostwrites for his literary patron, “Mrs. F.” A historical novel set in the Renaissance, Fair Youth explores the legend that a romance between Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, 20, Lord Great Chamberlain, and Queen Elizabeth I, 37, produced a son, Henry, born in secret, who grew up to become the universally acclaimed “Fair Youth” of Shakespeare’s sonnets. When Queen Elizabeth refuses to acknowledge Henry, however, he joins the Essex Rebellion and makes a vain attempt to seize the throne by force. He is sentenced to death but at Oxford’s request Elizabeth reluctantly orders the sentence commuted.

Order Now

“Who’s Your Shakespeare” by Carl Rollyson, New York Sun, July 12, 2024

https://www.nysun.com/article/whos-your-shakespeare-new-works-may-change-your-mind

“One request led to two books for Oxford’s Lawrence Wells” by Allen Boyer

https://jacksonclarion-ms.newsmemory.com/?publink=150f64385_134d3cf

“Ghosting With Gertrude” by Tina Chambers

Ghosting with Gertrude

Filed Under: Blog, New Books

New memoir “Ghostwriter” and ghostwritten novel “Fair Youth”

March 22, 2024 By Lawrence Wells

“Ghostwriter” is based on the true story of my being hired by the University of Mississippi to ghostwrite “Fair Youth,” a novel, for a potential donor (Gertrude C. Ford, now deceased) for a planned $20M performing arts project. “Mrs. F” was convinced that Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, was William Shakespeare and that she was the reincarnation of de Vere’s alleged mistress, Queen Elizabeth I. (Published by University Press of Mississippi) “A rich and amusing literary memoir with a conspiratorial twist.” (Kirkus)

“Fair Youth” explores the legend that a romance between Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, 20, Lord Great Chamberlain, and Queen Elizabeth I, 37, produced a son, Henry, born in secret, who grows up to be the “Fair Youth” of Shake-Speare’s sonnets. When Queen Elizabeth refuses to acknowledge Henry as her heir, he joins the Essex Rebellion and makes a vain attempt to seize the throne. He is sentenced to death but Elizabeth leaves orders for his sentence to be commuted.

CARL ROLLYSON’S REVIEW OF “GHOSTWRITER” AND “FAIR YOUTH” – NEW YORK SUN, JULY 12, 2024

 

INTERVIEW WITH CARL ROLLYSON, JULY 7, 2024: “GHOSTWRITER, BIOGRAPHER, NOVELIST, SHAKESPEARE, FAULKNER—WE COVER IT ALL IN LAWRENCE WELLS’S WORK” 

 

Filed Under: Blog

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • …
  • 17
  • Next Page »

Cart

About Yoknapatawpha Press

Founded in 1975, Yoknapatawpha Press is a southern regional press established by co-publishers, Lawrence Wells and the late Dean Faulkner Wells. Most of the press's projects are generated in-house.The company is named for William Faulkner's fictional county, Yoknapatawpha, from the Chickasaw word meaning "gentle water."

Subscribe

Copyright © 2025 · Yoknapatawpha Press, P.O. Box 248, Oxford, MS 38655, 662-234-0909