The Last Face
When fate chooses your vehicle as its instrument, the road ahead gets mighty hard to travel.
Stories
Oh, Mersey!
In which our Culture Warrior heaves anchor and explores a new album of sea shanties, among other oddities along the passage.
By Rob Rushin-Knopf /
Into the Gumbo Pot
No metaphor represents Southern culture better than a bowl of gumbo.
By Chuck Reece /
The Museum of Man, Mud and Machine
Chattanooga, Tennessee, pays tribute to those wonderful folks who rescue us from breakdowns, mud holes and scary places in the middle of the night — the tow truck drivers.
By Fred W. Wright Jr. /
Gumbo Weather
For some, the food of the South has always been barbecue. For others pimento cheese, but in certain areas — and in a certain kind of weather — it is always gumbo.
By Richard Murff, with photos by the author /
End of the Groove
Remembering Memphis drummer Howard Grimes, who backed Al Green, Ann Peebles, O.V. Wright, Willie Mitchell and others
By Alan Richard /
Crossing Middle Age
Florida poet John Davis Jr. contributes “Crossing Middle Age” and two more powerful poems.
By John Davis Jr. /
The Car Wash
In his college admissions essay, Martin Luther King Jr. wrote that he first experienced a discrimination-free life while he picked tobacco in a Connecticut field. This is how the story gets told in a car wash.
By Paul Thim with photo-illustration by Stacy Reece /
Virginia’s Yasmin Williams Puts a New Shimmer Onto the Music Scene
Yasmin Williams’ amazing guitar techniques have created a new genre that critics (well, at least one critic, ours) is calling shimmer
By Rob Rushin-Knopf with photos by Zach Pigg /
On Generosity
Jennifer Crossley Howard recounts her journey from the country club to food stamps — and how she found the grace to make a comeback.
By Jennifer Crossley Howard /
Sewing Lessons
Shelley Johansson shares the story of how sewing has sustained the women of her family for almost a century — from bandages during World War II to masks for the current pandemic.
By Shelley Johansson /
Making Sense
Jordan Blumetti reflects on “Indigo,” the latest book from one of the South’s greatest living writers, Padgett Powell.