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Stories

Kentucky poet Emma Aprile, winner of the Salvation South New Poets Prize, smiling outdoors with trees in the background; featured in an exclusive interview and poetry collection for Salvation South, highlighting emerging Southern poets and contemporary poetry.

We Are All From Where We Are

Louisville poet Emma Aprile, winner of our inaugural Salvation South New Poets Prize, discusses her creative process, the landscapes that shape her work, and what it means to write from and for the South.

Window Splat

Cleaning insect innards off his mother’s windshield was this ecologist’s childhood chore of choice. Pesticides and climate change had mostly negated the need to scrape bugs—until the Great Southern Brood of cicadas descended this May.

Before the Blue of Devastation

From Georgia by way of Brooklyn, three poems weaving pleasure, wholeness, and spirits.

Grace Beyond Her Ability

Sherri McCoy’s service to the unhoused people of Atlanta is an exercise in radical selflessness.

Who Fights for You?

Maddie Stambler’s first short documentary tells the story of a lifelong friendship. Some might call her bond with her subject “unlikely.” Maddie calls it transformational.

Two Cultures, One Filmmaker

She grew up in a bicultural family with deep roots in South Carolina. The product of two rich storytelling traditions, she now captures on film the dualities of the South—and of her own life story.

Far Beyond the Visible

Three poets from Florida, Tennessee, and Virginia offer visions of their fathers.

Living Legacy

Between 1912 and 1932, a collaboration between a Black educator and a Jewish businessman produced 5,000 school buildings in which more than 600,000 African American children in the South were educated.

The Quiet We Share

Grief is an eternal shape-shifter. One of Appalachia’s most resonant voices guides us through it with three poems.

It’s Time for a Revolution in Southern Thinking

As we celebrate Pride Month, our editor prays that our beloved South will rise above old ways that bring hate where there should be love.

Water Always Wins

A jazz player who grew up roaming the banks of the Mississippi produces a musical meditation on life’s most essential element.

A Letter to the Southern Glitter Kids

He grew up in Mississippi and didn’t come out until he was thirty-one. Here is his letter to LGBTQ+ kids—words he wishes someone had shared with him years earlier.

Sunday Fatback

As a child, she saw only the difference between the simple food in her home and the fancier fare on her friends’ tables. Years later, she would see more clearly.