Tom Franklin

Tom Franklin is an American author of crime fiction and Southern literary fiction. He won the CWA Gold Dagger for Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter (2011), a celebrated novel about friendship, race, and violence in rural Mississippi. He is also known for Hell at the Breech and the short story collection Poachers. Franklin was born in Dickinson, Alabama, and his fiction is deeply rooted in the American South, particularly in themes of poverty, race, violence, and small-town isolation. Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter was praised for its emotional depth, vivid characterization, and authentic Southern voice. He is a professor of creative writing at the University of Mississippi and is married to fellow author Beth Ann Fennelly, with whom he co-wrote the novel The Tilted World.