Daphne Simpkins

Daphne Simpkins is an Alabama author and speaker whose writing moves between Southern fiction, Christian storytelling, caregiving, aging, and memory. Mildred Budge in Embankment is the second main novel in her Adventures of Mildred Budge series. It follows a retired schoolteacher and members of a church pulpit committee after their car leaves the road and lands in a ravine. Stranded together, the group must cooperate while reconsidering what they want from church leadership and from their own lives. Simpkins’s Mildred Budge books portray Southern church life through humor, friendship, and recurring community characters. Her nonfiction includes The Long Good Night, a memoir about her father’s Alzheimer’s disease, and What Al Left Behind, which reflects on caregiving. Her subjects also include cooking, Christmas, and Nat King Cole. Across these subjects, Simpkins draws on faith and long experience as a caregiver. Mildred Budge in Embankment brings those concerns into an ensemble novel about vulnerability, belief, and practical mutual help.