One of the best places to sit and rest and think about life is in the heart of the woods. While I was in Illinois, my sister Lynn took me up one of the many hills in Springdale Cemetery, a magnificent place encompassing 255 rolling acres. From the green slopes, crowded with headstones and weather-beaten [...]
There is a connection between the soul and nature. I grew up planting, harvesting, digging my hands in the soil. Now, as a middle-aged woman, I spend a lot of time walking so deep in the woods that I can’t hear the noise of the city. Nature fills me and heals me and inspires me. [...]
I placed a jug of water and a bowl in the car and loaded Ahab in the backseat. My dog and I were going gallivanting. On this day, we headed to Arabi to find my 4th great-grandfather’s grave. Samuel Story. The drive, at times beautiful, at times heartbreaking, took us past dogwoods in full bloom, [...]
I’m going out with one my dog’s today. Ahab. He’s the big one. A mixture of this and that: Lab and Pit and perhaps something else. He came from the homeless shelter for dogs. That’s what I call it. The homeless shelter. The official name to the place that cared for Ahab for so long [...]
A few months after the release of Dogwood Blues, a book club connected to a Friends of the Library group from a county a few hours from my hometown asked me to speak at their July meeting. The president of the group had started reading my book and was thrilled. Even though he hadn’t finished reading [...]
When my two children were young, my husband would often leave for 3-month deployments aboard a nuclear submarine. During his absence, my children and I enjoyed the live theater, symphonies, and ballet. We read poetry, books, and attended museums. We planted flowers and had sleep-overs. And we laughed a lot. When their father and I [...]
It is a Tuesday. The month is July. In two days my mother will be dead. As a writer I know to build the suspense one scene at a time. Stretch the tension. The rules of style, even those I reject, are tattooed inside me. But this is my story and I will tell it [...]
The Intruder, a short-short story laced with magical realism, was first published in the Dead Mule School of Southern Literature. I hadn't thought about the story for some time, yet when I walked through the house this morning, my knees aching, a memory of the old woman and her rusty joints kicked in. If you don't [...]
Plundering through the history of our southern way of life, I can always grab hold of something interesting, dust it off, and examine it. Today, I give you a photo essay of the families whose homes were at Tifton's cotton mill village before it closed. These photos were shared with me many years ago when [...]
Brenda Sutton Rose 