As a child growing up in the South with cerebral palsy, Benji Carr developed an eye for the bizarre and quirky, which provided all of the stories he told his friends and family with a bit of flavor. Working as a journalist, storyteller and playwright, his work – whether the stories be personal tales of struggle and survival or fiction about cannibal lunch ladies, puppet romances, drag queen funerals, and perverted killer circus clowns – has been featured in The Guardian, ArtsATL and Pembroke Magazine. Onstage, his pieces have been presented at the Center for Puppetry Arts, Alliance Theatre, and as part of the Samuel French Off-Off Broadway Short Play Festival in Manhattan. He lives in Atlanta and helps run the online literary magazine, Gutwrench Journal. 
IMPACTED is his first novel.

What’s new and exciting in your life as an author?

IMPACTED came out over the summer, and it’s been doing pretty well. I have a story called “Marthasville” coming out in the Georgia Gothic anthology this year. Blood Bound Books published my story “Nougat” after I performed it at KillerCon. 

What is your connection to the American South?

I grew up in Buford, and I live in Atlanta. I’m a UGA grad and a member of the Phi Kappa Literary Society. And I’m a fan of the culture, its music and its literature. 

How has that connection to the South informed your work as a writer? 

I grew up around natural storytellers, the gossips and the smart alecks. In the South, the stories are all soaked in Baptist shame, which gives them a different, darker flavor. And there’s a touch of the wild in them. Even though I was a fairly dainty kid, I still have stories of running through kudzu, getting poison ivy, getting run over by a Big Wheel and accidentally burning my face on an electric fence. There are a million different layers in every story, from the tacky to the genteel.

What can we expect to see from you in the future? 

I’m trying to write another book for my publishers at The Story Plant.

Milton Davis is an award winning Black Speculative fiction writer and owner of MVmedia, LLC, a publishing company specializing in Science Fiction and Fantasy based on African/African Diaspora history, culture, and traditions. Milton is the author of twenty-one novels and short story collections and editor/coeditor of ten anthologies. His short stories have appeared in a number of anthologies and magazines, most notably Black Panther: Tales of Wakanda, Obsidian Literature and Arts in the African Diaspora and Tales from the Magician’s Skull. Milton’s story ‘The Swarm’ was nominated for the 2017 British Science Fiction Association Award for Short Fiction, and his story Carnival was nominated for the 2020 British Science Fiction Association Award for Short Fiction.

What’s new and exciting in your life as an author?

Well, I released the sequel to my Ki Khanga story collection, Eda Blessed, titled Eda Blessed Two. I’m also about to drop the paperback version of Fallen, a sword and soul story collection that takes place in the world of Changa’s Safari.

What is your connection to the American South?

I’m born, raised and bred in the South. I was born in North Carolina, grew up in Columbus, GA and currently reside in the Metro Atlanta area. While I’ve traveled throughout the U.S., I’ve lived in the South my entire life.

How has that connection to the South informed your work as a writer? 

They say we Southerners are storytellers, so I guess I’ve inherited that by proximity. On a personal level, I’ve only recent begun to tap into my personal experiences as a Black person growing up in the South as a source of my imagination. Some say those are my best stories.

What can we expect to see from you in the future? 

Working on a number of novels right know. The ones closest to fruition is Destiny, a Cyberfunk novel set in my Utopia universe and The Curious Cases of Martha Perrywinkle, a Steamfunk novel from my Freedonia universe.

You can all my books via my publishing company MVmedia and anywhere books are sold. You can also read excerpts from my books at my vanity website, www.miltonjdavis.com