Southern Stories

Stories were collective, as in the case of the antebellum proslavery argument or Confederate discourses about women. Sometimes they were personal, as in the private writings of figures such as Lizzie Neblett, Mary Chesnut, Thornton Stringfellow, or James Henry Hammond. These men and women regularly employed their pens to create coherence and order amid the tangled circumstances of their particular lives and within a context of social prescriptions and expectations.

In the immediate aftermath of the Civil War, the North assumed significant power to redefine the South, imagining a region rebuilt and modeled on northern society. The white South actively resisted these efforts, battling the legal strictures of Reconstruction on the ground. Meanwhile, white southern storytellers worked to recast the South's image, romanticizing the Lost Cause and heralding the birth of a New South. Prince argues that this cultural production was as important as political competition and economic striving in turning the South and the nation away from the egalitarian promises of Reconstruction and toward Jim Crow.

The stories collected here in Volume One are among the earliest in Blaise's forty-year publishing career. The experience of Florida -- particularly the underdeveloped north-central areas close to modern Disneyfied Orlando -- profoundly affected a `Yankee' child with Canadian parents. The Florida Blaise describes is little-changed since the Civil War. The stories in this volume trace a young writer's journey towards his life's work. By the close of his Florida experience, he has discovered a way of integrating his Canadian, and especially his French-Canadian, background into a sub-tropical foreground. Included are two very early stories, `A Fish Like a Buzzard' and `Giant Turtle, Gliding in the Dark', which have not previously been published in book form. Southern Stories assembles the best of Clark Blaise's early work in one collection. His powerful writing is as relevant to our times now as it was when these stories first appeared. Included here are stories from A North American Education, Tribal Justice, Man and His World and Resident Alien.

Multi-published author and professional storyteller Brooke Cox believes sauces from the Lord are all around us. Don’t be misled; this is not a book about food. For the most part. Cox considers these sauces as the basis for stories that equal fun lessons from God. She says these sauces often leak into our lives in the guise of stories that are equipping us to live, not only in our present, but also in our future. In the book, Saucy Southern Stories, Cox shares the zesty sauces the Lord has generously poured onto her quirky tomboy life. She believes He wants her to impart her personal musings about life and family for His glory, and to make a difference in other people’s lives. In these true saucy tales filled with gumball machines, bling, and softball, Cox shares what she has learned about being fearless in pursuing your dreams. If the reader is paying attention, they will see biblical truths in each heartfelt recounting. As a self-acclaimed klutz who runs too fast, Cox says we should learn to take life in stride, laugh when we can and always rely on the Lord for help.

Sweet Southern Stories contains two stories. The first "Nothing Here Belongs to Jesus" is a recollection from my youth when my small daughter went on a Saturday morning scavenger hunt pulling her red "Radio Flyer" wagon throughout the neighborhood where we lived. While she had taken on a far more difficult assignment than she had imagined, she worked diligently at it all morning long and was exceedingly proud of her accomplishment. I believe the lesson she learned that morning will remain with her for the rest of her life. The second story, "Truthie's Rainbow," happened much more recently on a Friday morning while our great-grandniece Truth was visiting for the weekend. It's an inspiring story of a delightful four-year-old that provides an insight into artistic and creative thinking, producing love, generating abilities that venture far beyond generational bounds. Both stories provide valuable uplifting object lessons on life for your children, your grandchildren, or any child you love. 2

From celebrated New York Times bestselling author and winner of the Pulitzer Prize, Rick Bragg, comes a poignant and wryly funny collection of essays on life in the south. Keenly observed and written with his insightful and deadpan sense of humor, he explores enduring Southern truths about home, place, spirit, table, and the regions' varied geographies, including his native Alabama, Cajun country, and the Gulf Coast. Everything is explored, from regional obsessions from college football and fishing, to mayonnaise and spoonbread, to the simple beauty of a fish on the hook. Collected from over a decade of his writing, with many never-before-published essays written specifically for this edition, My Southern Journey is an entertaining and engaging read, especially for Southerners (or feel Southern at heart) and anyone who appreciates great writing.