Anna Jean Mayhew was born and raised in Charlotte, North Carolina where she also lived, worked, raised a family and enjoyed civic life. It wasn't until she moved to the Triangle region of the state that she understood how much she wanted to write about Charlotte. Mayhew had always written, but she had no formal education as a writer. Yet with the help of a dedicated writing group and many years of perseverance, she finished "The Dry Grass of August" (Kensington Books/2011), which was recently released.
The book chronicles the road trip of the Watts family as they travel without their father and with their African-American maid from Charlotte to Pensacola, Florida in the summer of 1954, just after the Brown v. Board of Education decision.
