Richelle Putnam

Richelle Putnam is a Mississippi Humanities Speaker, a Mississippi Arts Commission (MAC) Literary Teaching Artist/Roster Artist, and a 2014 MAC Literary Arts Fellowship recipient. She is the managing editor and head writer for The Bluegrass Standard Magazine and has contributed to Parents and Kids Magazine, Town and Gown, Social South, Portico, Well Being, eat. Drink. Mississippi, and Mississippi Magazine. For Supertalk Meridian 103.3, she hosts two talk radio shows: Behind the Scenes and Looking Back. Her non-fiction books include Lauderdale County, Mississippi; a Brief History (The History Press, 2011), Legendary Locals of Meridian, Mississippi (Arcadia Publishing 2013), a Young Adult biography, The Inspiring Life of Eudora Welty (The History Press, April 2014), which received the 2014 Moonbeam Children’s Book Awards Silver Medal and was nominated for the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters award, non-fiction category. Her book, Mississippi and The Great Depression, (released November 13, 2017 by The History Press), was nominated for the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters award, non-fiction category and is a finalist in the 2017 Foreword Indies Book Awards in the Regional non-fiction category. The Mississippi Secretary of State’s Office commissioned her to write the history on nine counties (Clarke, Kemper, Lauderdale, Newton, Neshoba, Leake, Smith, Scott, Jasper) in East Central, Mississippi for the 2017 Mississippi Bicentennial book (December 2017). Her fiction and poetry have been published in Pif Magazine, The Copperfield Review, Birmingham Arts Journal, and several bestselling anthologies.