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Robert Gwaltney

Award-Winning Southern Author

Robert Gwaltney

Robert Gwaltney, a recipient of the 2022 Pat Conroy Writers Residency, was named 2023 Georgia Author of the Year for his debut novel, The Cicada Tree. He resides in Atlanta Georgia where he is an active member of the Atlanta literary community serving as a board member for Broadleaf Writers Association. Robert’s work has appeared in such publications as Southbound Magazine, Southern Literary Review, The Blue Mountain Review, and The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature. His current novel, Sing Down The Moon, has been awarded the Somerset Award for Literary and Contemporary Fiction.

Books

Featured Work

Sing Down The Moon

Sing Down The Moon

Sing Down the Moon (2026). Set on a remote Georgia barrier island steeped in Southern folklore and family inheritance, this novel follows sixteen-year-old Leontyne Skye as she struggles against the haunting legacy tied to her family’s sacred fig tree. Sixteen-year-old Leontyne Skye yearns to escape Good Hope, the remote Georgia coastal barrier island where she […]

The Cicada Tree

The Cicada Tree

The Cicada Tree (2022). A Southern Gothic novel set in 1956 Georgia, following young piano prodigy Analeise Newell as racial tensions, family secrets, and supernatural events erupt alongside the emergence of a massive cicada brood. WHEN AN ELEVEN-YEAR-OLD, WHISKY DRINKING, PIANO PRODIGY ENCOUNTERS A WEALTHY FAMILY POSSESSING SUPERNATURAL BEAUTY, HER ENSUING OBSESSION UNLEASHES FAMILY SECRETS […]

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