Judith Turner-Yamamoto

Judith Turner-Yamamoto is a fiction writer whose debut novel draws on the landscapes and social textures of rural North Carolina. Loving the Dead and Gone, published by Regal House in 2022, follows the consequences of an unexpected loss through two women, Aurilla and Darlene. Their intertwined stories examine grief, family loyalty, withheld affection, and the private choices that can reshape a community long after the initiating event. Rather than treating remembrance as a single emotion, Turner-Yamamoto lets it alter relationships differently across generations and households. Awards followed, including a gold Independent Publisher Book Award for Southern regional fiction and recognition from the North Carolina Society of Historians, affirming both its literary and regional dimensions. Loving the Dead and Gone also reflects Turner-Yamamoto’s background in short fiction, where compressed scenes and close attention to character can give small decisions lasting force. Her novel expands that method across multiple lives while keeping place, memory, and emotional consequence tightly connected.