Monica Brashears Books In Order

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Monica Brashears is an Affrilachian writer from Tennessee who is best known for her debut novel “House of Cotton” which she published in 2023.

She has always been someone that is passionate about authorship but is also interested in screenwriting. As such, she had always been dreaming of becoming an author ever since she was in grade 5.
But it would not be until several years later that she finally began writing her first novel.

The author got a double major in Africana studies and English with a major in creative writing from the University of Tennessee. Shortly after her graduation, she moved to the New York City suburb of Syracuse which is where she got her creative writing MFA.

It was in March 2020 that she started penning the manuscript for the fairytale-inspired novel “House of Cotton” set in her rural Tennesse town.

The work grew from a short story that he began writing when he was part of a creative writing workshop conducted by Chris Hebert, who is the author of “The Boiling Season” and “Angels of Detroit.”
It was that work that would then bloom into the Southern Black Gothic fiction work it is today.

While Monica Brashears had been writing ever since she was a child, what she lacked all those years were lessons on structure. Unlike many authors, she did not have many literary influences since her house had for the most part only Stephen King and Bibles.

However, she was afraid of the bible and could not write like Stephen King and hence it was not until she joined a program that she felt at home.

Monica took two classes with Bill Larsen and it was from that he learned the many different ways of being lyrical, thematic, and visual in writing. She thus had a very good foundation even before she joined grad school to study creative writing.
Nonetheless, while she did not have much use for the Bible Stories and Stephen King novels which had a dark underbelly, she would later find inspiration in them.
In fact, some aspects of the Bible stories and fairytales in addition to elements of Stephen King can be found in her fiction.

Later on, he fell in love with novelists such as Carmen Maria Machado, Toni Morrison, Gloria Naylor, Jesmyn Ward, and Gayl and Jones.
All of these authors usually write with similar dark tones which are closely aligned with Monica’s interests and lived experiences.

It was Frank X. Walker who coined the term Affrilachian writer which Monica Brashears has come to be known as.

When she was at the University of Tennessee and taking workshops as an undergraduate, she used to love writing a lot about the mountains.

While attending a poetry workshop during her last year in college, just as she was getting ready to pack up and leave for New York she was called Affrilachian.
She grew up in the Appalachians in Tennessee and this aspect would inspire many of her plots and settings. She found most of her story ideas from her upbringing as she grew up surrounded by all manner of fairytales.
As such, Appalachia and Tennesse are ever present in her writing hence the name Afrilachia that was given to her by her classmates.

In addition to her very popular novels, her work has also been featured in the likes of Appalachian Review, Nashville Review, The Master’s Review, and Split Lip Magazine.
She currently makes her home in the New York City suburb of Syracuse from where she pens her blockbuster works of fiction.

Monica Brashears’s novel “House of Cotton” tells the story of 19-year-old Magnolia Brown who is pregnant grieving, broke, and all alone. Mama Brown her grandmother had taken her in as her mother had then been struggling with money and addiction.
But she has just recently died leaving Magnolia to deal with a predatory landlord. She is employed at a gas station and usually spends much of her day with Cigarette Sammy, a silent homeless man.

One late evening, a man named Cotton comes to the station and scares everyone as his hands are all bloody. He offers Magnolia a modeling job but the problem is that it is to be at his funeral home.
She hesitates to take up the offer but she has no other better opportunities and needs to pay her rent soon.

At the funeral home, she finds herself working with Cotton’s partner named Eden who is an expert at using makeup to run her into just about anyone.

The three work together to help the bereaved talk to what is a reasonable copy of their friends and family that is deceased. Their business is booming and they are making good money that Magnolia quits her job at the gas station.
She moves in with Cotton but things start going bad especially when she finds that she is pregnant. She has cause to believe that her unwanted pregnancy may destroy their partnership.

At work, Cotton increasingly has strange requests for their burgeoning list of customers. Magnolia soon learns that there is more to her life than just trying to find her rent.