How to Write a Ballad
Two lifelong friends—one a poet, one a painter–talk about it all: labor, joy, and love; the value of slowness; the subtleties of structure; and how to “make it soft, make it low.”
Stories
The Tennessee Floods (Villanelle)
Poet Mel Buckingham from Nashville sets her memories of the 2010 Cumberland River floods to the strict rhyme scheme of the villanelle.
By Mel Buckingham /
Hope Is a Place
Marianne Leek went to interview 87-year-old David Burch in North Carolina. She thought it would last an hour. But it lasted all day. And she learned a lot of lessons about hope.
By Marianne Leek /
We’ll See You on January 7!
All of us at Salvation South look forward to spending our first full year with you in 2022.
By Salvation South /
Mama’s Pimento Cheese Goes to College
Beloved newswoman Kay Powell tells us how her mama’s pimento cheese wound up being the subject of a sociology class in Colorado. (Recipe included.)
By Kay Powell with illustration by Stacy Reece /
Seeds for Marvin
Compelled by a family tragedy, Frankie Roberts started LINC to provide hope, skills and community for men and women coming out of prison and addiction.
By Michael Venutolo-Mantovani /
The Crossing
The Appalachian mountains are full of women who “become everybody’s mother.” This poem from Marianne Leek pays Christmas homage to one of them.
By Marianne Leek /
A Little House of Hope
To get through times like these, we’ve got to build our own little houses of hope and then live in them.
By Chuck Reece /
That Wasn’t for Me
Erik Peters brings us a small piece of fiction about a small gesture — and how such gestures can mean so much.
By Erik Peters /
The History of St. Nick
Their mother was honest with her children. If only her children hadn’t been honest with their classmates.
By Peter Dye /
Faithful Friends
Our editor ponders whether we can create a new recipe for a happy Christmas.
By Chuck Reece /
Learning to Love the A Minus
Or, How the Pandemic Kicked My Kitchen Perfectionism to the Curb
By Susan Rebecca White and Illustrations by Stacy Reece /
The Special Decadence of Pimento Cheese
Sarah Brown knows exactly what’s right and exactly what’s wrong in the making of pimento cheese, specifically the sort that will send a shiver down your spine.