In 1984, cub reporter George Flack hopes for his first big story at the Asheville Citizen-Times. Instead, he is assigned a cranky reader: Miss Nellie Lusk, who demands a correction and apology after the newspaper mistakenly listed her among the dead in the devastating Flood of 1916. As George uncovers the truths behind her family’s losses and her recovery from a crippling case of polio, he is forced to confront the secrets he has long buried. Decades later, he returns to Asheville on the brink of Hurricane Helene, seeking reconciliation with both the town and his own past. Resonant and quietly haunting, this reflective novella evokes the small-town depth and tenderness of Allan Gurganus, exploring nostalgia, regret, and the fragile burdens of survivor’s guilt.

Praise for Floodmarks

“In Dale Neal’s novella, Floodmarks, the Asheville Flood of 1916 leaves its marks on a woman who survived it and the young reporter she corrals to tell her story. In our current climate, rife with floods, fires, and other disasters, this book is an eloquent reminder to listen to other people’s stories—and to our own.”

—Mimi Herman, author of The Kudzu Queen

“Dale Neal unleashes his abundant narrative gifts on a close-to-the-bone tale of a lonely young man’s search for courage and purpose in a profession that demands more bravado than he can easily muster. Part love letter to a city and its most famous writer, Floodmarks is a moving ballad of personal struggle, bygone newsrooms and the truths we can stumble into when our private anguish collides with other people’s disasters.”

—Kathryn Schwille, author of What Luck, This Life

“Dale Neal’s Floodmarks is a tightly crafted, exquisitely paced gem of a novella. Neal’s protagonist, George Flack, offers up a nostalgic, lyrical reminiscence of his days as a cub reporter in 1980s Asheville, NC, and the novella becomes, on one level, a love letter to the mountain town and its changing landscapes. The characters in Floodmarks are all flawed survivors, each searching for some sort of détente with the past, and Neal’s masterful depiction of their emotional scars gives Floodmarks a resonance that rings long after the final page.”

—Scott Gould, author of Peace Like a River and Beneath a Fallen Sky

“Dale Neal’s remarkable storytelling prowess is on full display in this captivating novella. Floodmarks provides an inside look at newspapers as a rookie journalist interviews the last survivor of the Flood of 1916. The interactions between George Flack and Nellie Lusk are full of humor and charm. When George embarks on a feature article commemorating the flood’s 70th anniversary, startling truths come to light—and George faces his own personal reckoning. A clever and compelling coming-of-age story, Floodmarks explores the many reasons people hide their vulnerabilities, ultimately asking what it means to find—and face—the hardest truths.”

—Heather Bell Adams, author of Starring Marilyn Monroe as Herself

“So much to admire and enjoy in Dale Neal’s Floodmarks. Two catastrophic storms a century apart. A lonely old woman who was mistakenly reported dead and demands a printed apology decades later. A deep dive into the nature of home, writing, life and death. All seen through George Flack, the cub reporter who grows up by living at the heart of this fascinating story.”

—Terry Roberts, author of The Sky Club and The Devil Hath a Pleasing Shape

“In his captivating novella, Floodmarks, Dale Neal skillfully weaves the past with the present as protagonist George Flack revisits Asheville, North Carolina, and recalls his early days at the Citizen-Times. As a cub reporter in the 1980s, George immersed himself in the story of Nellie Lusk, whose father was swept away in the devastating 1916 flood, a catastrophe strikingly similar to Hurricane Helene in 2024.
Readers will empathize with the flawed but likeable George, who makes rookie mistakes as he juggles breaking news assignments that require him to uncomfortably poke into the lives of strangers. At the same time, he struggles to handle Nellie’s demand for a correction to the newspaper’s 1916 article that declared her dead—even though, seven decades later, she is obviously very much alive.
Floodmarks vividly evokes the region—'Everywhere you look on the horizon in Asheville stands a blue mountain'—as well as the traditions and tools of journalism from a bygone era (before mobile phones and digital content). It’s a caring and evocative exploration of a young man’s insecurities, ambitions and desires as he figures out who he is and what he wants out of life.”

—Karen Garloch, author of Stray Voltage

“Simply one of the most natural storytellers writing novels today.”

—Kevin “Mc” McIlvoy, author of One Kind Favor and Is it So?

“Neal, whose novels have all been inspired by the mountains, takes his rightful place among the most complex and nuanced of Appalachian writers.”

—Tommy Hays, author of The Marriage Bed

“Neal is a masterful novelist: he makes it look so easy.”

—Lewis Buzbee, author of The Yellow-Lighted Bookstore and Diver