Salvation South

Southern writers respond to our region’s current troubles with words that offer human healing—and pointed challenges.

In Kentucky’s Red River Gorge, a historic tunnel stands as a testament to the region’s boom-and-bust cycles. Amelia Loeffler explores how this “Gateway to the Red” reflects the area’s complex past and uncertain future.

Two Southern poets confront the tragedy of school shootings. Johnson and Lawson’s raw, visceral words help us reflect on the Apalachee High School killings and the broader epidemic of gun violence in America’s schools.

In his new book, Wright Thompson explores the murder of Emmett Till and its lasting impact. John T. Edge interviews Thompson about confronting Mississippi’s past.

Sometimes, the only way to see our world clearly is through the eyes of an intergalactic traveler.

It took repeated visits to the West for this pecan farmer and nature writer from South Georgia to feel in his bones the wonders of his home landscape in the coastal plain.

When a Georgia minister and her husband adopted African American twins, they embarked on a challenging journey of love, learning, and confronting uncomfortable truths about race in the South.

This time is tied to that time, and this creature to another—that’s what this Appalachian laureate shows us in two poems about children, grandchildren, a dog, and our own bodies.

From punk rock roots to Americana success, Caleb Caudle discusses his evolution as a songwriter and the path that led to his upcoming Grand Ole Opry debut.

Tammy’s about to get her associate’s degree and she’s got a chance to get a real job, with a desk and a chair and vacation days. There’s just this one thing…

In southeastern Georgia, a mother stews up some chicken and considers what her family farm requires of her—not what she requires of it.

Harriet Tubman first escaped enslavement in Dorchester County, on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, on September 17, 1849. She returned at least 13 times to lead at least 70 to freedom. One-hundred-and-seventy-five years after that first escape, these four poems from southeast Virginia honor her spirit of resistance and solidarity.