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Stories

The image shows a dramatic artistic photograph of a wooden spoon engulfed in orange and red flames against a black background, with fire trailing from both the bowl and handle of the spoon. The composition symbolically represents the intersection of chronic illness spoon theory, trauma, and Appalachian wooden spoons through its powerful visualization of a kitchen implement transformed into something both destructive and beautiful.

Spoon Theory

Morgan DePue on how good memories, childhood trauma, and chronic pain can all rest in the hollow of that wooden spoon you hold in your hand.

We Are a Choir

The South’s greatest poets assemble to sing the truths of our region for National Poetry Month.

Whatever We Never Planned

From North Alabama’s Rachel Nix come three poems about the names we carry, the waters we cross, and letting time do its thing.

Like Rabbits

Smiling Easter bunnies? Not hardly.

At the Corner of Rosa Parks and Jefferson Davis

Three poems from—and a compelling interview with—Alabama’s inimitable Jacqueline Allen Trimble.

Sweet Tea With Emily Dickinson

How a small crew in tiny Whitesburg, Georgia, turned the work of a 19th century New England poet into a touring fundraiser for small-town public libraries in the South.

Leaf Out

The world opens up during a foggy morning run.

Words, Gorgeous Words

The writer who took us to “Paradise” two years ago returns to Salvation South.

The Bear Essentials

On Cherokee land, the black bear is an eternal presence—from the lore of thousands of years ago to the way Native people see them today.

The End Kisses the Beginning

One of the South’s greatest living masters of the short story, the relentlessly funny George Singleton, talks to Salvation South about the craft of writing—and his utter disregard for “Gone with the Wind.”

My Mother the Crow

Inevitably, it comes time for the one who loves us best to leave. But maybe she’s always around, like that bird outside the window.

The Funniest Southerner?

This week, join our Patti Meredith as she interviews George Singleton, a master of the short story—and of making us laugh at ourselves.

From Limb to Blossoming Limb

As spring arrives, one of the South’s most prolific poets takes us from the celestial to the earthly and back again.