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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.

The Only Lie

Her father was a Pentecostal minister who never told a lie in his life. Until he did. And it was so big, it stayed with the family forever.

We Keep Their Echoes With Us

A Tennessee poet guides us into a spring ritual, an old house, dreams of where we’ve been, and dreams of where we’ll be.

The Coyote’s Journey

“The coyote…has as much right to be here as we do,” environmental activist Edward Abbey once wrote. These days, he wouldn’t get much agreement.

A Giant Sin of Omission

The daughter of a legendary Arkansas pair of revivalists unravels a gripping story about an unspoken truth that haunted her family for decades.

The Bootleg Preacher

A minister on why he takes his cues from the late Mississippi Rev. Will D. Campbell, who believed all of us were bastards, but that God loved us anyway.

Will the Rivers Still Run?

After a lifetime of fishing in—and studying—the rivers of our Blue Ridge Mountains, an ecologist now understands, and grieves, how climate change has altered them forever.

Stillpoint

A poem on faith and doubt along the Carolina shore

The Flora and Fauna of Your Heart

This weekend’s edition brings writing about a wondrous Southerner and natural Southern wonders.

The Last One Left

Robert Lee Coleman, at 18, led a crew of teenage musicians in Macon, Georgia, who played so hot even James Brown came to town recruiting. At 78, he plays even hotter, and he vows to “play until I die.”

Come Back to Me

Some of us mourn quietly. Some of us howl like wounded animals.

The Hero in the Motel Lounge

Meet Robert Lee Coleman, a son of Macon, Georgia, and a pioneer of Southern soul and funk music, who vows never to put down his guitar.

The One Who Walked Away From Elkins

How an Appalachian disowned by his family reckons with loss and belonging