Don is joined by author Lee Smith to discuss her new novel set in Asheville, NC - Guests On Earth, which features Alabama native Zelda Fitzgerald. Don spoke with Lee in the Alabama Public Television studios in Montgomery, AL.

Don is joined by author Tom Franklin about his works "Hell at the Breech" and "Poachers" at the University of Mississippi.

Don visits with author Michelle Richmond to talk about her novels "The Year of Fog" and "No One You Know" at Rock Point Books in Chattanooga, TN.

After several volumes of fiction, Sena Jeter Naslund had her first great success with Ahab's Wife. Since then she has published Four Spirits, Adam and Eve, and Abundance. The latter focuses on the life of Marie Antoinette. Her new novel, The Fountain of St. James Court explores the lives of both the real life artist who painted the French queen and a fictional writer who writes her novel telling the painter's story.

Rick Bragg won the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing in 1996 for his work at The New York Times. Born in Piedmont, Alabama, in 1959, Mr. Bragg is the author of two best-selling memoirs, All Over But the Shoutin' and Ava's Man, as well as his newly released The Prince of Frogtown. He credits his writing ability to the oral storytelling of family and friends in his childhood in the Appalachian foothills of Alabama, saying: "My grandfather on my daddy's side and my grandma on my momma's side used to try and cuss their miseries away. They could out-cuss any damn body I have ever seen. I am only an amateur cusser at best, but I inherited other things from these people who grew up on the ridges and deep in the hollows of northeastern Alabama, the foothills of the Appalachians. They taught me, on a thousand front porch nights, as a million jugs passed from hand to hand, how to tell a story." Bragg has told stories and taught writing at Harvard University, the Poynter Institute for Media Studies, Boston University, the University of South Florida, and other colleges. Bragg became a domestic correspondent in The New York Times' Atlanta office in October 1994. Before joining The New York Times he worked at several newspapers, including the Los Angeles Times and the St. Petersburg Times, covering murders and unrest in Haiti as a metro reporter, the Oklahoma City bombing, the Jonesboro killings, the Susan Smith trial, and more as a national correspondent based in Atlanta. He later became the paper's Miami bureau chief just in time for Elian Gonzalez's arrival and the international controversy surrounding the Cuban boy. Bragg attended Harvard University as a Nieman Fellow from 1992 to 1993 ("the only real college I ever had") and beside his Pulitzer Prize, he is the recipient of the American Society of Newspaper Editors Distinguished Writing Award and 31 other national, regional and state writing awards. He has had stories included in Best Newspaper Writing 1991, Best of the Press 1988, and two journalism textbooks on good writing and foreign reporting. He now works as a writing professor at the University of Alabama's journalism program in its College of Communications and Information Sciences.

Alabama author Daniel Wallace joins Don Noble to talk about his new book "The Kings and Queens of Roam"

Allan Gurganus broke onto the American literary scene with a giant novel, The Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All. This week Alan joins Don to talk about his collection of three novellas - Local Souls. This episode was taped at the Alabama Booksmith in Homewood, AL.

Born in Illinois the author traveled extensively as a military wife. Reading was a solace in times of strife, and led to an MFA and a career in writing. Her latest novel, her fourth, is Z, the fictionalized biography of Zelda Fitzgerald.

A North Carolina native now living in New York who as a non-fiction writer has been prolific and diverse. Sins of the Father is about a mobster in the witness protection program. American Made is his latest about the history of the New Deal's WPA program. He has also written biographies of John Glenn and Gordon Gould, the inventor of the laser, and a book on the culture of Bass Fishing.