The thirteen American colonies are part of our national mythos, a piece of patriotic lore inextricable from our very identity. A new book from historian Mike Bunn, by the name of Fourteenth Colony, offers compelling reasons to change our thinking. Fourteenth Colony covers the colonial period during which the British occupied the area along the Gulf Coast, from Louisiana to the Florida Panhandle, known as West Florida. This colorful account offers a fresh but comprehensive reappraisal of the history, describing life in the frontier colony, the political and military realignments that allowed the British to assume control, and offering perspective on why the colony is hardly ever discussed in the context of our country’s foundational history.

Praise for Fourteenth Colony has been strong and comes both from academics and historians writing about the founding of our country to publishing industry journals, such as Kirkus and Booklist, book reviewers, and others. Here’s a sampler of what is being said about Mike Bunn’s new history:

• The Journal of the American Revolution: “Engaging and well written. A smart, well-researched book.”
• Publishers Weekly: “An accessible and well-researched account. Bunn combines deep scholarship with vivid storytelling in this comprehensive record of the period.”
• Samuel C. Hyde Jr., Leon Ford Endowed Chair, professor of history, Southeastern Louisiana University: “At last we have an easy-to-read book that corrects the long-embraced notion of thirteen American colonies rising in revolution against Britain… Impressively researched and well written.”
• Kirkus Reviews: “An illuminating exploration of a chapter of American history most readers haven’t previously encountered.”
• Library Journal: “An excellent, well-researched introduction to a long-forgotten British colony of America’s Revolutionary era.”
• John S. Sledge, author of The Mobile River and The Gulf of Mexico: A Maritime History: “A readable and well-researched history of British West Florida has long been overdue. Now, finally, we have one thanks to Mike Bunn.”
• William C. Davis, author of The Rogue Republic: “Combining groundbreaking research with mature judgments and crisp narrative, Fourteenth Colony will surely be the definitive work on one colony that somehow escaped becoming another stripe on Old Glory.”
• The Mississippi Clarion-Ledger: “A history which Alabama, Florida, and Mississippi inhabitants ought to know… Fourteenth Colony is riveting history, warranting multiple readings to commit to memory insights into the colonial history of the Southeast.”

The author himself has joined in on the conversation as well. Q&As, interviews, and presentations with Mike Bunn include:

• WAMC Radio for Bob Barrett’s The Best of Our Knowledge
• Mobile Bay Magazine
• Mississippi Department of Archives and History

Bunn continues to research and speak about the history told in Fourteenth Colony, and we expect to continue to share more news with you on this blog and our social media platforms. For more information, visit www.newsouthbooks.com/fourteenthcolony

For the winter quarter of 2021, the National Endowment for the Arts awarded Alabama institutions and artists $270,000, supporting the best and brightest creators in the state. NewSouth Books is proud to announce that Jacqueline Trimble, author of American Happiness, received twenty-five thousand of those dollars in support of the furtherance of her work as a poet. Chosen alongside the University of Alabama at Birmingham, the Alabama Shakespeare Festival, and the city of Tuscaloosa, Trimble’s achievement as an individual is a remarkable one indeed. As she told Alabama State University, where she serves as a professor of English and chair of the Department of Languages and Literature, “The National Endowment for the Arts only bestows this award to poets every other year, which makes it very special and most important to me. While the monetary award is fantastic, the most important thing to me is the level of recognition and encouragement this fellowship gives me as a writer by having a jury of my peers choose my manuscript out of a total of 1,601 in a blind competition. This makes me feel that my long hours of writing poetry are worthwhile … Being named an NEA Fellow is personally awe-inspiring to me.”

Jacqueline Trimble has been a poet and educator for much of her life, working tirelessly to create and share the beauty and art of poetry with students and readers alike. Dr. Jennifer Fremlin, chair of Huntingdon College’s Department of Language and Literature, had this to say about her: “Those lucky enough to have been students or colleagues of Dr. Jackie Trimble know that she is first and foremost a teacher, and her poetry is an extension of that drive to help us all learn to see the world as it is: unvarnished and truthful and painful and beautiful all at the same time.” This NEA fellowship enables Trimble to continue writing full-time without distraction, a gift to us as readers.

American Happiness, her award-winning debut poetry collection, was published by NewSouth in 2016. Alabama Writers Hall of Famer Honorée Fanonne Jeffers wrote this about the collection: “I longed for her kind of poetry, these cut-to-the-flesh poems, this verse that sings the old-time religion of difficult truths with new courage and utter sister-beauty.” To use the language of the pandemic, Trimble’s work is essential, and we should be grateful that she has received this NEA grant that will keep her writing in 2021 and beyond.

More about Trimble’s work and the award can be found from Huntingdon College and Alabama State University.

Benjamin Sterling Turner was enslaved in Alabama. Despite obstacles and hardship, Turner would overcome the odds and teach himself to read as a child. That literacy paved the way for Turner to become a successful businessman during the Civil War and the first African American representative in Congress for Alabama during Reconstruction. His story, one of bravery, perseverance, and dedication, has inspired some of Alabama’s most important figures, including Representative Terri Sewell. Rep. Sewell, in a visit to a Selma elementary school classroom, remarked that she stands on Turner’s shoulders. During that very visit, Rep. Sewell donated a copy of NewSouth’s illustrated children’s book about Turner, entitled The Slave Who Went to Congress, to every child in that school’s fourth grade. Inspired by her generosity, the authors of that book, Frye Gaillard and Marti Rosner, in partnership with NewSouth Books have launched a GoFundMe campaign designed to gift a copy of The Slave Who Went to Congress to every public elementary school in Alabama.

Turner’s story is told for children for the very first time in The Slave Who Went to Congress, a beautifully illustrated picture book that movingly describes Turner’s challenges and achievements. Few are the books about Turner. This true inspirational tale, lauded by many since its publication, will resonate with young readers, particularly those from marginalized and underserved communities. Thus was born the idea of crowdfunding the donation of copies to schools across the state. Please take a moment to consider supporting our campaign with your personal donation, and help empower a new generation of kids with the gift.

For more information, see Overturning Brown’s page on our website!

Ibrahim Fawal (1933 to 2020), Abe to his friends, was a writer, filmmaker, educator, and one of the most remarkable of NewSouth’s authors. Born in Ramallah, Palestine, he came to the U.S. to attend film school, after which he was the Jordanian assistant director for Lawrence of Arabia. His brother’s sudden death in Birmingham brought him to that city to look after the bereaved family, guide the family business, and become a U.S. citizen. But Abe’s heart was in art, and he began making films, teaching college literature and film classes, and writing what eventually became the PEN Oakland Award-winning On the Hills of God, a sweeping novel exploring the creation of Israel in 1947 from the Palestinian perspective. It and its sequel, The Disinherited, were published by NewSouth.

Coronavirus has changed the landscape of book publishing this year, as it has changed nearly every facet of all our lives. In an effort to bring our books directly to you when you are probably spending more time at home, we seized the opportunity to ask our talented authors to read short previews from their books. We hope these videos allow you to engage with the writing world and our published books in a whole new way. Check out the links below for full videos.

Marti Rosner reads from The Slave Who Went to Congress

Kirk Curnutt reads from All of the Belles: The Montgomery Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald

Wanda Lloyd reads from Coming Full Circle: From Jim Crow to Journalism

Rod Davis reads from East of Texas, West of Hell

Ken Woodley reads from The Road to Healing: A Civil Rights Reparations Story in Prince Edward County, Virginia

Frye Gaillard reads from A Hard Rain: America in the 1960s, Our Decade of Hope, Possibility, and Innocence Lost

William Alsup reads from Won Over: Reflections of a Federal Judge on His Journey from Jim Crow Mississippi

Julie Hedgepeth Williams reads from A Rare Titanic Family: The Caldwells’ Story of Survival

Julie Hedgepeth Williams reads from Three Not-So-Ordinary Joes: A Plantation Newspaperman, a Printer’s Devil, an English Wit, and the Founding of Southern Literature

Aileen Kilgore Henderson reads from Eugene Allen Smith’s Alabama: How a Geologist Shaped a State

Joe Taylor reads from The Theoretics of Love

Jacqueline Trimble reads from American Happiness

Jerry Armor reads from A Home for Wayward Boys: The Early History of the Alabama Boys’ Industrial School

Jennifer Horne reads from Working the Dirt: An Anthology of Southern Poets

Julian McPhillips reads from Civil Rights in My Bones: More Colorful Stories from a Lawyer’s Life and Work, 2005–2015

John Pritchard reads from Junior Ray

Clifton Taulbert reads from The Invitation

The variety of individuals who have called American Founders a must-read are as diverse as they are distinguished. This recently released work of historical genius from Christina Proenza-Coles traces the impact African-descended peoples have had on the American continent, beginning long before the first English ship reached our shores. It is this wide-ranging and unique perspective that led Henry Wiencek, author of Master of the Mountain, to call American Founders an “important work” that “offers an extraordinary, compelling new narrative of the African role in creating the Americas of the Western Hemisphere.”

We were thrilled to see American Founders named a finalist for the Foreword INDIES Book Award in the category of history in June of this year. Even more recently, jazz legend and maestro trumpeter Wynton Marsalis surprised us by naming the book his personal favorite on the subject of freedom in a short video for his personal blog. What an achievement for American Founders! Marsalis expertly describes Proenza-Coles’s research and, not surprisingly, ties the significance of the work back to jazz.

Christina Proenza-Coles’s book was also the subject of a penetrating radio program for WYPR’s On the Record, Baltimore’s NPR affiliate. The author herself was a guest, offering insights and little-known stories from American history that show in what remarkable ways AfroAmericans have contributed to the character and early history of our country, including in the struggle for freedom and social justice.

Of course, history is still being made. The momentous events of this moment in the year 2020 place in bold relief the many ways in which African-descended Americans continue to shape our destiny, leading the charge toward a more equitable and just society. For more information, visit http://www.americanfoundersbook.com/.