This is a brief (and only very slightly exaggerated) recounting of a somewhat unusual, albeit festive, holiday tradition observed for many years by my somewhat unusual, albeit festive, North Carolina family.
by Mary I. Woodell
Julia Franks volunteered as an Atlanta poll worker in August for the primary runoff elections. Her reflections raise concerns about safety and access while shining light on the dedication of often overworked and underappreciated poll workers.
by Julia Franks
When her high school swim team was floundering, she didn’t want to bear the responsibility of their failure. Her daddy asked her to dust off the old Bible and she found a lesson that fit for today. The writer of our beloved Hot Chicken Story would love to believe that she ain’t like all those other white people, but the lesson is a little more complicated than that.
by Rachel Louise Martin
After losing a father and a brother to substance misuse disorder (SUD), a Kentucky public health worker wants to tear away the stigma of being in the “survived by” category.
by Chelsey Reid
When a tornado ripped through her hometown in Hampton County, South Carolina, it revealed the deep divides in a region that prides itself on hospitality.
By Caroline McTeer
When grief hit hard, neighbors from her small town in Georgia came out with mounds of chicken nuggets, bags of barbecue, and trays of casseroles, cookies and cakes.
by Rachel Lord Elizondo
The big tree in her grandparents backyard was her childhood sanctuary and nothing could keep her out of it.
By Cristie Armstrong
The host of the new PBS show Fly Brother reflects on how his parents raised him to be a world-traveler.
By Ernest White II
Veteran war correspondent Moni Basu, and University of Florida journalism professor, on how the pandemic can give us stories that will guide us once it’s over.
By Moni Basu
This North Carolina writer thinks monks and whiskey can teach us a thing or two about staying put.
By Greg Jarrell
Living with the heightened threat of infectious disease that comes with cystic fibrosis, this woman from a small town in Alabama is depending on her family to protect her from COVID-19.
By Kristin Entler
On pregnancy and planting seeds during this great pause.
Story & Illustrations by Martha Park
Hannah Markley never worked on her family’s land, but when her uncle sells the last of the dairy cows on the family’s Kentucky farm, the depth of the loss hits hard.
Story by Hannah D. Markley
When we can’t sit at the same table, let's not forget why we should. Cornbread helps.
Story by Meredith McCarroll
When COVID-19 reached the final state in the Union and West Viginians were told to “practice social distancing,” they had 150 years of experience at it already.
By Susan Jennings Lantz, Ph.D.
A New Orleanian reflects on the challenges of isolation in the most social city in the South.
By Adam Karlin
The name of these critters changes if you are catching them in a creek, dissecting them, in a lab or eating them on a plate.
By Brandon Britton
The new minister asked for a volunteer singer. He didn’t count on a little girl with a thing for Tanya Tucker.
By Emily Brown Murphrey
No need to write fiction when you’ve got childhood memories that read straight from the pages of O’Connor or a Lewis Nordan Novel.
By Heather Peters Candela
Her mother was a tough, hardscrabble woman whose love for her daughter was hidden — and rediscovered — in a box of old letters.
By Teresa Nicholas
“I come from a place of unforgiving red clay. A place with red dirt roads winding through the flat land, rows and rows of pine trees on either side. So many trees it makes it seem as if the road should never have been there at all.”
By Rachel Lord Elizondo
A Florida native teaches her California man the ABCs of Mother Nature’s fierce side.
A live oak in the brambles holds the childhood memories of a Mississippi neighborhood wiped out by Katrina.
