This is a photo of the book cover of “Girl Trouble,” which was written by Russellville native Holly Goddard Jones.

Holly Goddard Jones grew up in Russellville in what her father John jokingly called a “saltine box” – a small ranch home covered with aluminum siding. John Goddard has worked at Emerson Electric for 47 years; Goddard Jones’ mother, Ruth Goddard, is a homemaker and brothers Eric and Michael round out the family.

“I was pretty typical of kids in small towns everywhere,” Goddard Jones said.

If there was one thing that stood out about the Goddard home, it was the books in every corner.

“We read all the time … it was part of everyday life,” Goddard Jones said. “It seemed to be a form of entertainment as much as TV. We went to the library constantly and books were lying around the house all the time.”

The books were mysteries, thrillers, westerns and the occasional romance novel.

“We all like books,” Ruth Goddard said. “We always used to drag her to the library because we wanted to go.”

Ruth Goddard said the reading bug translated to a love of writing by their only daughter, so it’s little wonder that she grew up to not only be an English and writing teacher, but a critically acclaimed author. Ruth Goddard still has a copy of an award-winning story her daughter wrote in about the fourth grade at Stevenson Elementary.

After graduating from Russellville High School, Goddard Jones went to Western Kentucky University for a year to study journalism.

“I loved the reporting part and I learned a lot about writing,” Goddard Jones said. But there was a catch.

“Especially then, I was very shy,” she said. The thought of approaching strangers and peppering them with questions was troubling.

“I still have trouble cold calling,” Goddard Jones said. “I knew I wasn’t a journalist.”

After her freshman year, Goddard Jones married and transferred along with her husband, Brandon Jones, to the University of Kentucky to study English.

In Lexington, she was exposed to and mentored by Southern authors, such as Kim Edwards, author of “The Memory Keeper’s Daughter,” who celebrated their heritage.

“It made me really re-evaluate my attitude about home,” she said.

After graduating from UK, she applied to the MFA program at Ohio State University, “stupidly optimistic,” she remembers.

But she was accepted and after graduating, has taught at Denison University in Ohio, Murray State University and now the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, where she is an assistant professor of English.

The academic career has allowed her to pursue her writing, with several works published in collections of short stories and in literary journals.

Several years ago, Goddard Jones met an agent at a literary conference who urged her to put together a collection of her short stories for a book. She did, but collections of short stories aren’t high on the want list of large publishing houses. Eventually, New York’s Harper publishing company accepted the volume for its Perennial division.

“(Perennial) has a very youthful vibe. It’s like a small press inside a big press,” Goddard Jones said.

The collection of eight short stories titled “Girl Trouble” will hit book stores Tuesday.

The stories are all set in fictional Roma, Ky., and, while not autobiographical, are loosely drawn from Goddard Jones’ experiences of small town life in southcentral Kentucky.

Among the stories are the tale of a high school basketball coach whose star player is pregnant with his child, and of a college student’s rape and murder as perceived by both the victim’s mother and by her killer.

The early reviews of “Girl Trouble” have been glowing.

“Jones writes with grace and ease, the selections adding up to a powerful sum of reflection, loss and regret,” according to a review in Publishers Weekly. “Girl Trouble” is a “masterful debut,” according to Booklist. And even Oprah magazine weighed in with a positive review, calling the stories in Girl Trouble “exhilarating.”

Goddard Jones will come home for book signings at 2 p.m. Sept. 27 at Barnes & Noble Booksellers, 1680 Campbell Lane, and at noon Oct. 9 at the Logan County Library, 201 W. Sixth St.

The literary success of her daughter doesn’t surprise Ruth Goddard, whose daughter’s works now have a prominent spot in her Russellville home alongside the efforts of other favorite authors.

“She’s always been driven,” she said. “I knew it would happen some day.”