Storybeat With Steve Cuden

            The noted author and teacher, Joseph B. Atkins, is a veteran writer and professor emeritus of journalism at the University of Mississippi.             Joe’s latest book, Harry Dean Stanton: Hollywood’s Zen Rebel, won the Bronze Award for biography from the Independent Publisher Book Awards in 2021.             Regarding Joe’s novel, Casey’s Last Chance, Edgar Award-winning author Megan Abbott called it, “…pitch-perfect vintage noir.”             Among his other notable works, Joe authored the nonfiction Covering for the Bosses: Labor and the Southern Press. And his novella, Crossed Roads, was a finalist in the Pirate’s Alley Faulkner Awards in New Orleans. Joe also edited and contributed to the short story collection Mojo Rising: Contemporary Writers, Vol. II.             His articles and short stories have appeared in The Oxford American, Noir City, Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, USA Today, Baltimore Sun, In These Times, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and the Guadalajara Reporter.