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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.

Testify

A poem from Frank X Walker’s latest collection, Load in Nine Times

Imagination as Survival: Stephanie Clare Smith’s Undrowned Memoir

In a candid conversation, the author of Everywhere the Undrowned reveals how she transformed childhood abandonment into a powerful memoir.

Country Queers: Rae Garringer’s Love Letter to Rural LGBTQ+ Folks

As part of our “Love Louder” initiative, Neema Avashia interviews Rae Garringer about their groundbreaking oral history project celebrating LGBTQ+ lives in rural Appalachia.

Collard Greens and Kaddish

A mother grapples with her own mother’s fading memory and acceptance, while finding strength in unlikely places. Fox’s poems blend the flavors of Texas cooking with the rituals of Jewish mourning, creating a unique portrait of healing and liberation.

Counting the Overlooked

An excerpt from Everywhere the Undrowned: A Memoir of Survival and Imagination, by Stephanie Clare Smith, centered on one summer in the young life of this North Carolina poet and essayist.

A Love Letter to a Drowned Land

In the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, a young writer chronicles the devastation of her beloved mountain community—and the resilience of her people.

From Floods to Gunfire

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

Into the Eye of the Dragon: Nada Tunnel’s Timeless Tale

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.

Echoes of Gunfire: Laments

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.

Wright Thompson’s Mississippi: Unearthing Truth in The Barn

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.

Aliens in America

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

Seeing the Country, Whole

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.