A new mother keeps up the annual tradition of watching Dolly Parton’s Christmas as a way to remember her mountain roots.

A remembrance of Eugene Odum, who taught all of us about the interdependence needed for natural worlds — and society — to survive.

Every Christmas Eve, his grandfather rang the dinner bell, should a traveler need comfort. One night, a wondrous guest found sanctuary, bringing with him the grace and light that is reborn in the Yuletide.

In a small town in West Virginia, basketball taught an immigrant girl how to feel “wildly, freely American.”

Notes on a lifetime of love for the basset hound, as Sadie, the most recent, fades away.

Jamie Hare’s family had a lynching in its history. That’s why she had to write this story.

Asheville, 1985. One young woman, one dorm room, and two pet mice named Eddie and Valerie. After the Van Halens.

She grew up in Baton Rouge, then built a life with her North Carolina husband in New Orleans. Then they moved back to Carolina — and only then did she experience the peculiar homesickness only New Orleans can create.

With air-conditioned everything, have we forgotten what joy a clunky old window fan could stir up?

Jimmy mowed her parents' yard, but the kid didn’t understand why she couldn’t invite him in for iced tea and cool air.

It’s not just a fishing term. It’s also a word we ought to use more often to describe the folks we love best.

Growing up in Polk County, Arkansas, he heard all the tall tales about the man underneath the gravestone, on which was crudely scratched “N****r Pete.” And he always hated the disrespect that little marker embodied.

Among all the South has gotten wrong, we have always done dying right. But are funeral food and silent respect for the procession fading away?

David Hardy’s father was an aviator because he grew up next to an Alabama airfield. He liked to quote the Old Testament and say he found his destiny because of where his parents pitched their “tent,” just like Lot pitched his in Sodom.

One Southerner’s guide to living, loving, and dying across the lines.

A Baptist preacher looks at the difference between the amnesty his ancestor received after the Civil War and how our nation treats people seeking amnesty today.

Joe Scully has been a kitchen guy for 42 years now. This is what he’s learned about how to comfort people.

As Tom Lee drove home from a high-school reunion, the arm extended from a drive-through window bore a tattoo that spoke volumes about the waves of suicides sweeping across America.

This week, Elvis Presley will be gone from this earth as long as he was here. Vic Varney, a pioneer of the Athens, Georgia, music scene, considers how we should celebrate, pity, and/or excoriate Presley today. 

Marianne Leek’s childhood was curious, especially in her little town in the North Carolina mountains. But it came with a road trip that taught her how to live — and how to teach.