Former professor works on his second novel Posted By: Features Editor January 28, 2021 Ben Overby [email protected] Former Murray State English professor and current fiction editor of “Hyphen Magazine” James Han Mattson’s second novel “Reprieve” will be released on Oct. 5, 2021. Mattson’s first novel, “The Lost Prayers of Ricky Graves” was released in 2017. It told the story of a young man struggling with his sexual orientation in a small town, who kills a classmate bullying him and then himself. The novel uses multiple points of view as well as emails and online chat room exchanges to explore the event and its aftermath.