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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.

All Thanksgiving, All the Time

We give thanks for you and your support — and offer a week full of Thanksgiving stories.

Floor Bird

In north Mississippi, close to the Tennessee line, the extended Brown family reunites for Thanksgiving. And sometimes, they tell their secrets.

Thanksgiving Oysters

In the Ross household, a turkey on the Thanksgiving table was never enough. Oysters were required.

Uncomfortable Food

A queer Southern mother’s complicated relationship with Chick-fil-A.

No Rest for the Lion

After the Civil War, the Atlanta Ladies Memorial Association erected a monument to the Confederate dead in the city’s historic Oakland Cemetery. In 2021, it was removed. Writer Mark Beaver ponders what the evolution of that cemetery tells Southerners about themselves.

Old Fort’s New Start

How a diverse crew of community-minded visionaries is betting on outdoor recreation to blaze trails to a more inclusive future for a sleepy Western North Carolina town.

Voting — From the Inside Out

An award-winning novelist — and a poll worker — shares a firsthand account of how she and her colleagues battle to ensure we all have the opportunity to vote.

Two Poems by Rebecca Baggett

A poet from Athens, Georgia, offers verses filled with beautiful visions about the power of conversation — both unearthly and earthly.

A Year of Hope and Healing

Salvation South came to life one year ago, and now we need your help to keep it alive.

Mending Nets

Growing up on a North Carolina barrier island, her father taught her the ways of the sea — and how too many people and too much greed would change their lives forever.

McCrea Park

A North Carolina poet remembers a long-ago night of young love, interrupted by some ominous figures.

The Fussell Family Business

Guitarist and singer Jake Xerxes Fussell grew up steeped in folklore, thanks to his musicologist father and textile artist mother. Like his parents, the younger Fussell is always searching through the back catalogs of Southern culture — but rendering art that is always of the moment.