Clarksville, TN – Shana Thornton started Thorncraft Publishing in 2012, after graduating from APSU with a master’s degree. Along the way, she had become interested in southern writers and the local literary scene. Thorncraft now primarily publishes the work of women authors in fiction and creative nonfiction.
“I just thought it was so fascinating and interesting,” Thornton said. “I worked for two years for an online magazine called Her Circle E-zine, which is still out there. We interviewed women artists, authors, and activists from all over the world. I was the Editor-in-chief and I loved it so much I offered to purchase it from the owner.”
Thornton had interviewed several women authors, some of whom had embarked upon a self-publishing venture. One of the editors she worked with was in Massachusetts, she said to Thornton, “If you’re serious about this, you need to do it, and I’ll let you publish my book.” She is currently an author with Thorncraft.
“I started with myself,” Thornton said. “I didn’t know yet, and I wanted to be sure I knew what I was doing. I had a book, Multiple Exposure, ready to go. It was focused on a character whose husband was repeatedly deployed to Iraq. It speaks to that. It tells the story of what spouses and families go through. It was fiction, but I had my informants.
“I started working on that when I was in grad school, but didn’t really know I was writing a book. Once I started seriously writing, it took about two years. There is a side story, about a murderer. I wanted to make sure I represented that story well.”
Thornton published that first book under her own company, and it went very well. “We launched at a coffee shop on Franklin Street,” Thornton said. “I still love the pictures from that launch. There were old records hanging on the wall behind me. I sold out all the copies I had ordered, over 100 books that night. It blew up, and it’s still one of my best-reviewed books out there.
“I was such a novice, I kind of cringe looking back, you know how you get better over time, or at least you hope to. I still get good feedback on that book.”
Poke Sallet Queen & The Family Medicine Wheel was Thornton’s real baby. “It’s the first book in a series,” Thornton said. “Vanderbilt archives it. They have it in their Southern Civilization Collection. I love it. It was a 2025 American Writing Awards Winner as a legacy book, legacy historical fiction.
“This was also my first launch ever at Parnassus Books in Nashville. I was beside myself. I forgot to do and say so many things. Barry Kitterman said, ‘let me tell you, when you go home tonight and you’re kicking yourself because you forgot all this, just remember, it was great and everybody’s had a good time.’ That was in 2014.”
Thornton realized it was difficult for women to get books into the marketplace. “We were putting out statistics and doing research articles about activism and publishing as an art for women. At that time, men were getting published 3 to 1 over women.
“I thought, first, I’ll make a commitment to women, and secondly, I’ll make a commitment to Tennessee authors. My first author was Beverly Fisher, a retired lawyer. She wrote a Civil War novella, and we launched that at Fort Defiance. It’s written from the point of view of a girl whose father is a prisoner of war. It was a neat story.”
Thornton loves war literature. She studied and worked in that niche for years, but felt it might be too limiting.
Her second author was Melissa Corliss DeLorenzo. Over the last twelve years Thornton has published nine individual authors, Amy Wright is her latest. She also publishes a series to which more than twenty people have contributed, as well as a yoga book series, on which she has worked with well over 100 authors.
“I tell people Thorncraft is a legacy business,” Thornton said. “I presented to the Kiwanis Club and they said, do you think publishing books is a viable business for most people to start, and I said, absolutely not. (laughter) But, you’re all businessmen. You know what it means to create a legacy. That’s something different.”
She then spoke a little about Clarksville’s connection to The Fugitive Poets. One hundred years ago we had the Fugitives, poets and writers like Robert Penn Warren. They got together at Vanderbilt University, under the renowned American poet Allen Tate. He moved into Benfolly, the home now owned by Stuart and Peggy Bonnington. Lots of authors have spent time in Clarksville. We have a rich history. So, this felt like something I was supposed to do.”
Thornton’s family always encouraged her to write, to be a writer, and tell stories. She still loves to listen to stories, saying, “It’s my favorite thing.”
Next, we talked about Sharon Mabry’s 2022 book, The Post Master’s Daughter. “It’s huge,” Thornton said. “We sell more of that one than anything. It has done the best, and it has the farthest reach so far. It has won a lot of awards.”
It was a 2023 finalist in both the American Writing Awards and the National Indie Excellence Awards. The Southern murder mystery set in 1930’s Appalachia continues to do well.
Next, we talked about Wanda McNabb’s Canopy of Bones and Breathable Air. McNabb lives in Russellville, KY, but lived in Clarksville for decades. She taught in the Languages and Literature Department at Austin Peay State University. Her book, published in 2025, is a collection of poetry.
In addition to Thornton’s busy publishing and writing schedule, she has a full-time job at Clarksville’s Customs House Museum, where, among other things, she runs the museum’s quarterly magazine.
“I am able to turn everything off and sleep,” Thornton said. “I do get behind at times. The people here are all really cool and really patient with me.”
She does set some limits for herself. “I don’t sign people that I don’t really know,” Thornton said, before turning back to McNabb’s book. “Wanda was blown away when I entered her book and it received these awards. She just wanted it out and available and for people to go buy it. That’s true of most of our authors.”
McNabb’s book is the winner of the 2025 American Writing Awards in Contemporary Poetry, and finalist 2025 American Writing Awards – Best Book Cover Design (Nonfiction) designed by Summer Lucio.
Thornton continued, “Now, Khristeena Lute is different. She went to APSU and then got her PhD from Middle Tennessee State University. She currently lives in New York where she works for City College of New York. I know deep in her soul she wants to be incredibly successful. She wants to go down and be remembered as a great author. She writes Southern fiction. Her first one, Finding Grace and Grit did pretty well. Because it has an academic side to it, focusing on an academic character, and a real writer – Grace King from the Civil War era in New Orleans, LA. She got great reviews and commentary on that one.
“Khristeena’s new one is coming out in June. She has high hopes. The new one is set in Appalachia, where she’s from. It’s called Whipporwill Sing. Its more of a Southern Appalachian mystery. Appalachian fiction seems to be the new breakout genre. Demon Copperhead is a very successful release by Barbara Kingsolver. She won the National Book Award in fiction and was a co-recipient of the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Since then, there has been a big boom of Appalachia focus.”
Thornton says she is reluctant to take on new ideas at the moment, just because she is so limited on time. “I have all I can handle from the women whom I’m working with now,” she said. “Sharon has another, Jenny has a new one, Amy’s book is about to come out. She just sent me a new one.
“So, I’m not accepting any new submissions. I am willing to talk to local authors and help connect them with someone with whom they can do freelance work. I helped Brendalyn Player package her whole book and lay it out. She hired me, and my husband Terry helped me on that project.”
Thornton says that most of the books that have come to her were basically already finished. She continued, “Brendalyn’s was finished, and she had already work-shopped it when she pitched it to me. Ellen Kanervo had work-shopped hers, and had gotten it to a point where she felt confident in what she was giving me. It wasn’t a skeleton.
“If people are at an earlier stage, I tell them they need to hire me, or Terry. Some authors work with an editor on their own, before they come to me. When they come to me, sometimes if I’m overwhelmed, I’ll hire a separate editor. Jennifer Stevens has edited a book for us before.
“I make suggestions, but it just depends on the author. Sometimes they want more of my input. I have her draft and we’re actively sculpting it, if you will. Same with Jenny. In the process, I’m sculpting with them, whereas Khristeena’s was pretty much done, and I edited, minimally.”
Thornton said Beverly Fisher’s book sat in a drawer for 20 years. She said, “’I was waiting on you to get born and grow up’. (laughter). She has written a new one since we published her first one. I knew she had another idea churning. Nikki came to me and said, ‘Ive got all these ideas, what are you interested in.’ She’s a screenwriter now living in Canada. I have another author in Texas.”
Thornton would love to do this full-time. “It has always been my thing,” Thornton said. “But, Thorncraft would have to take off. We would need for some of these to be made into movies. We have an option for one. We’re just waiting. She is a screenwriter. I’ve got three scripts of hers, separate from the book.
“There is a big difference between a book and a screenplay. Screenplays need ideas and good dialogue. I love dialogue. For years, I’ve worked with an editor just on character development and language, that’s Rita. She moved back to the UK a couple of years ago. She is in her 80’s, and has such a wide range of experience, and such a wonderful vocabulary from having been all over the world, and done all these things.”
Thornton says that she learns so much by working with these authors. It makes her a better writer and editor, all the way around.
“I have to think about how things work,” Thornton said. “Sometimes you start at the end and work backwards.
“This is my whole heart. My grandfather had a woodworking company, on the side, called Thorncraft. He ended up having a brain tumor and was paralyzed. You find him sprinkled throughout all my books, truly. We would listen to radio programs, and read together and tell stories together. So part of this felt like something I had to do for him.
“It’s still my connection to him, to this day. Even though I publish women authors and it has nothing to do with his hobby. That relationship was just so formative to who I am. That love of story telling. That name that I’ve always latched onto. I love what these authors produce. I love it every time an author is happy. I just know what that feels like. To hold your book in your hand and feel like, man I worked on this for so long. People actually want to buy it and read it!
“That’s what I tell students. I’m so proud of all of them. They’re publishing books, continuing to work, and do all the things we started together. You have to put it out there and get your own self out of the way, because you’ll second-guess yourself, forever. A book is never finished. When I get ready to read it out loud, I edit it as I’m reading, and that’s okay, it’s your work.”
Thorncraft books are distributed through Ingraham Distribution. Find out more at Thornton’s website, www.thorncraftpublishing.com. Many Thorncraft books can also be found at the library.
