R.E. Vaughn

I read and write Southern Literature, Rural Noir, and Dark Fiction short stories. Murder, revenge, gallows humor, deception, bad love, and not-so-nice small town and backwoods folk predominate my works.

I'm a Southerner by virtue of ancestry, birth, and choice. I've lived in Europe, and for a short time on the Big Island of Hawaii. I currently make my home in the South, not far from the mountains of Asheville, North Carolina, and the beaches of South Carolina.

I'm an avid and dedicated reader, preferring the works of Pinckney Benedict, Eudora Welty, Tim McLaurin, Dennis Lehane, Flannery O'Connor, Daniel Woodrell, William Faulkner, M.O. Walsh, Erskine Caldwell, Alice Hoffman, Carson McCullers, Ernest Hemingway, John Steinbeck, Hillary Jordan, and Stephen King.


Writing Philosophy
Write what you like. Write every day, if you can. Same place, same time, if you can. Do this and you'll soon know this is where you're supposed to be. And read, because reading is the other half of the writing equation. Lastly, don't give up. Ever.

Favorite quotes
"Whenever I’m asked why Southern writers particularly have a penchant for writing about freaks, I say it is because we are still able to recognize one."--Flannery O'Connor

“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.”--Albert Einstein

"I expect to pass through this world but once. Any good therefore that I can do, or any kindness or abilities that I can show to any fellow creature, let me do it now. Let me not defer it or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again."--William Penn

"Anybody who has survived his childhood has enough information about life to last him the rest of his days."--Flannery O'Connor