That Southern Thing—living, loving, laughing, loathing, leaving the South.

Forty-two writers from around the South—now or formerly—share 45 personal stories of their living, loving, laughing, loathing, and even leaving this unique, quirky, welcoming, troubled, challenging, and always interesting region. “That Southern thing,” whatever it is, binds them and us together by geography, family, history, choice, happenstance, misfortune, and, for some, “by the grace of God.”

Through 45 short stories, you share in the life experiences of writers—both fresh, new voices and seasoned storytellers. They skillfully share tales from their lives, causing us all to consider our own life experiences, our own stories—the good and the bad—of how and where we lived and loved and laughed, of what we loathed and perhaps left. With drama, tragedy, and humor, they give us a peek into what makes The South a special part of America, then and now, and why those who live here today still embrace the praise and the criticism that might come from both the Southern-born-and-bred and those not from around here with the same, mostly sincere, “Bless your heart.”

“Through the creaking rhythm of porch rocking chairs, I learned a lot about dead folks.”

“I confronted my Southern biases head-on: not so smart, slow, Confederate, shoeless, squirrel hunters.”

“You heard me. I registered you for Cotillion classes.”

“We ‘borrowed’ a broken headstone from the cemetery to use as a substitute grill.”

“The boy’s mama showed up at school and ‘whupped’ Mrs. Redfern’s ass.”

“He had just broken a decades-old silence, saying out loud what everyone knew but no one talked about.”

“He was an arrangement of bones fashioned into a stick of a man with gnarled leather skin, wrinkled and worn like a pair of old work gloves.”

“Robed and hooded Klansmen were shouting and holding signs facing the traffic as we passed.”

“A hotel lifeguard in the late 1940s, my dad saved pretty girls who pretended to be in distress from swimming too close to the jetties.”

“Ruth placed an axe under the bed with the blade facing up—for ‘cutting the pain.’”