Richelle Putnam holds a BS in Marketing Management and an MA in Writing. She is a Mississippi Arts Commission (MAC) Teaching Artist/Roster Artist (Literary), a Mississippi Humanities Speaker, and a 2014 MAC Literary Arts Fellowship recipient. She is also a former host for Supertalk Mississippi 103.3's two radio talk shows: Behind the Scenes and Looking Back. Her YA biography, The Inspiring Life of Eudora Welty (The History Press, April 2014), received the 2014 Moonbeam Children’s Book Awards Silver Medal and was nominated for the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters award, non-fiction category. She is the author of Lauderdale County, Mississippi; A Brief History (The History Press, 2011) and co-author of Legendary Locals of Meridian, Mississippi (Arcadia Publishing 2013). Her book, Mississippi and The Great Depression was released on November 13, 2017, by The History Press and was nominated for the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters award, non-fiction category. It received the 2017 Foreword INDIES Book Awards Bronze Medal for regional non-fiction. She was commissioned by the Mississippi Secretary of State’s Office to write the history of nine Mississippi counties (Clarke, Kemper, Lauderdale, Newton, Neshoba, Leake, Smith, Scott, Jasper) in East Central, Mississippi, for the 2017 Mississippi Bicentennial book released December 2017. She co-wrote Was It Worth It, which won first place in the Tallahatchie Riverfest’s William Faulkner Playwriting Competition, which has been performed several times on stage around Mississippi, and Women of Potta Chitto, which was performed on several community theatre stages. The soundtrack to Women of Potta Chitto has been performed around the state. She is the senior editor and head writer for The Bluegrass Standard Magazine. Her work has been published in Pif Magazine, The Copperfield Review, Birmingham Arts Journal, and several bestselling anthologies. She has contributed to Parents & Kids Magazine, Social South, Portico, Social South, Well Being, Eat. Drink. Mississippi, and Mississippi Magazine. As a singer-songwriter, she has been featured on many radio and Internet stations and American Songwriter Magazine. Her mission as a writer and teaching artist is to help children experience the beauty of words and to realize their power.