7 Birmingham-area authors with new books out in 2026
Reading time: 4 minutes
From a Birmingham true crime investigation to a collection of carol-inspired horror, local authors have plenty of new books to pick up this fall.
Here are seven recent and upcoming releases from writers in Birmingham, Homewood, Blount County and St. Clair County.
Each book has a link to purchase the book, generally from the author or publisher directly. However, we love to support small, local businesses in Birmingham! Many of these books are carried in local bookstores. If a book isn’t in stock, most bookstores are even willing to order a copy for you.
1. ‘The Wiregrass’ by Birmingham author Matt Kessler
Birmingham-based writer Matt Kessler spent nine years reporting on the 1999 murders of two teenage girls in Ozark, Alabama, and the arrest of Coley McCraney two decades later. The book examines the investigation and offers three alternate suspects that police never publicly named, along with a new theory of the case.
Kessler has reported on justice, race and equity for The Guardian and on environmental issues for The Atlantic.
- Genre: True crime
- Date of release: Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2026
- Purchase: Hachette Book Group
2. ‘Black Tidings: Carols of the Profane’ by Birmingham author Jonathan Daniel
Jonathan Daniel’s collection turns 25 Christmas carols into 25 horror stories. It’s built like an advent calendar, so readers can take one story a day from Dec. 1 through Christmas or read them all at once. Expect graphic content.
3. ‘Abandoned Birmingham’ by Birmingham native Leland Kent
Leland Kent photographs the city’s forgotten buildings and researches the history behind them. The book covers schools such as Bush Middle and Elyton Elementary, the Bradley-Smith and C. O. Chambless mansions, the Black Elks Lodge and the Ensley Police Precinct.
Kent grew up in Birmingham, graduated from UAB and started the Abandoned Southeast blog in 2016.
- Genre: Photography and local history
- Date of release: Sunday, Aug. 30, 2026
- Purchase: America Through Time
4. ‘The Lost Book of Life’ by Homewood author Charles Ghigna
Charles Ghigna’s new and selected collection spans five decades of his work. It pulls from 14 earlier volumes and adds 37 new poems, with a foreword by Jennifer Horne.
Ghigna has written more than 100 books for children and adults, and his poems have appeared in The New Yorker, Harper’s and The Wall Street Journal.
- Genre: Poetry
- Date of release: June 2026
- Purchase: University of Alabama Press
5. ‘Some Starry Night’ by Blount County author Irene Latham
Irene Latham imagines what might have happened if Vincent van Gogh and Emily Dickinson met in Paris. The novel follows their friendship and romance, and the creation of The Starry Night.
Latham’s earlier book “African Town” won the Scott O’Dell Award for Outstanding Historical Fiction.
- Genre: Historical romance
- Date of release: Tuesday, April 14, 2026
- Purchase: Bookshop.org
6. ‘The Ghosts of an Empire’ by St. Clair County author Austin Stone
Austin Stone digs into the history of the Alabama Fuel and Iron Company and the DeBardeleben family’s coal towns at Acmar and Margaret. The company-run towns were fortified against labor organizers and later abandoned.
- Genre: Local history
- Date of release: Monday, March 30, 2026
- Purchase: America Through Time
7. ‘Ruby Falls’ by Birmingham author Gin Phillips
Gin Phillips sets her locked-room mystery in the Ruby Falls caves in Chattanooga at the start of the Great Depression. A mind reader’s publicity stunt goes wrong when one member of the party turns up dead.
- Genre: Historical mystery
- Date of release: Tuesday, March 3, 2026
- Purchase: Bookshop.org
