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Stories

Portrait of Joy Priest, featured in a Kentucky poet interview about her Horsepower poetry collection, highlighting Joy Priest Southern poetry and new poems.

…And I Sing

Kentucky poet Joy Priest shares, in this conversation with Chuck Reece, how writing became both her salvation and her rebellion.

A photo illustration accompanying Tiana Clark's Scorched Earth poems, reflecting themes of Black motherhood in poetry, faith, and grief.

The Raw Root of Dark Sounds

These three poems excerpted from “Scorched Earth” reckon with a mother’s face, the devil’s music, and what miracles can happen on a plain day.

A hawk soaring above a hayfield under the sun, illustrating 'Succession,' a nature-inspired poem by Tennessee poet Sherry Poff. Keywords: Tennessee poet Sherry Poff, Appalachian poetry Succession, nature-inspired poems Tennessee.

Succession

In the natural world, one thing always leads to another.

Tiana Clark Southern poet, author of Scorched Earth poetry collection, exploring radical Black joy in poetry and modern cultural narratives.

The Unapologetic Verse of Tiana Clark

From Nashville to national acclaim, Tiana Clark’s poetry challenges readers to embrace the fullness of Black experience and the radical act of rest.

Close-up of a rotary phone accompanying Limping Along, a poetry collection by North Carolina poet Joseph Mills exploring time, memory, and resilience. Joseph Mills poetry.

Limping Along

Even as we march forth into the future, we can’t stop wrestling with the past. Three poems about what time whispers in our ears.

A young girl watches football in the 1980s on television, finding a path to belonging. Football becomes a shared language with her father, and the forge their own American Identity through Sports. Father Daughter Football. Immigrant Experience Football.

Three Yards and a Cloud of Dust

The language of football offers an immigrant girl growing up in South Carolina a way to connect with her father—and the USA.

Southern fiction Mothman lounges with a poodle in "A Temporary Arrangement," a divorce short story that explores what happens when a cryptid joins the family.

A Temporary Arrangement

Raising kids is hard. Marriages fall apart. Sometimes, you need a little help.

'I’ve Been to Graceland' keychain illustration accompanying Sybil Rosen’s short story 'Graceland,' part of her 'Riding the Dog' collection of Greyhound bus stories.

Graceland

Two strangers on a Greyhound bounce toward Memphis from
Texas. They’re both losing love. It’s like a window in their hearts.

A watercolor sunset over rolling hills with a car on a winding road, symbolizing themes from Steve Cushman’s poetry collection about family, memory, and emotional everyday moments.

Full With Love

Sometimes the littlest things can set us off: a vegetable, a sibling’s smile, the taste of a certain beer, imagining someone who’s gone is still here. Maybe love lives that low—all the way down to the molecular level of the everyday.

A photo of the aftermath of Hurricane Helene in Old Fort, NC shows railroad tracks suspended in midair. McDowell County flood relief efforts continue as the community rebounds from devastation.

Hope Beyond Helene’s Havoc

Twisted railroad tracks and debris-filled streets are no match for the spirit of Old Fort. Photographer Stacy Reece captures the community’s determination to overcome Hurricane Helene.

Damage from Hurricane Helene at Buck Creek Trout Farm in McDowell County, North Carolina, highlights the resilience of rural communities like Old Fort. Discover how this small Western NC town is rebuilding stronger through unity, innovative rural development, and economic revitalization through outdoor recreation.

After the Deluge

Hurricane Helene’s devastating floods tore up the small town of Old Fort, North Carolina. But its people are actually speeding up their plans to build a new local economy built on outdoor recreation.

Silhouetted winter trees against a pastel sunset sky evoke solastalgia, environmental grief, and childhood memories of rural Georgia, as explored by Tracy Thompson in her poignant essay.

Solastalgia

Pleasant memories of places past: that’s nostalgia. But what do you call the grief that comes when the modern world leaves nary a trace of the place that raised you?

A man tubing on a river, evoking themes from Beth Copeland's 'Tubing on the New River,' a poem by the award-winning North Carolina poet about aging and companionship.

Tubing on the New River

An award-winning poet’s reflection on aging, intimacy, and how to navigate the sometimes comical waters of companionship.