John F Blair Publisher – förlag

In his New York Times bestselling debut novel, Silas House introduced himself as an important voice for Appalachia, and indeed, for the entire rural South. In Clay’s Quilt, now a touchstone for his many fans, House takes us to Free Creek, Kentucky, where a motherless young man forges his path to adulthood, surrounded by ancient mountains and his blood relatives and adopted kin: his Aunt Easter tied to her faith and foreboding nature; his Uncle Paul, the quilter; the wild girls Evangeline and Alma; and a fiddler whose music calls to Clay’s heart. As he struggles to stitch up the void created by his mother’s death, Clay pieces together his own life’s quilt, all masterfully wrought by House.Blair brings this novel into a beautiful new paperback edition, along with two other Silas House novels, A Parchment of Leaves and The Coal Tattoo. The three novels, which share a common setting and some characters, are companion novels. They may be read individually, in any order, but collectively, they form a rich tableau of life in rural mountain Kentucky in the last century.

In this nationally bestselling novel, A Parchment of Leaves, Silas House produced an iconic story of 1900s rural mountain Kentucky that remains a favorite of many of his fans. On his way to find work in the Redbud Camp, Saul Sullivan encounters a Cherokee girl who is said to possess a beauty that brings death to the men who see her. Saul, however, is irrevocably drawn to Vine the moment he lays eye on her and believes they are meant to be married, over the objections of her mother and his. Despite her misgivings, Saul’s mother, Esme, and his brother Aaron take to Vine from the moment she comes to God’s Creek. In fact, Vine realizes from the start that Aaron’s interest in her is far more than brotherly. When Saul must leave Vine behind for a year of work, troubling and violent events follow his departure, and Vine’s spirit and her love are put to the ultimate test.This novel was the Winner of the Award for Special Achievement from the Fellowship of Southern Writers and a Finalist for the Southern Book Critics Circle Prize.Blair brings this novel into a beautiful new paperback edition, along with two other Silas House novels, Clay’s Quilt and The Coal Tattoo. The three novels, which share a common setting and some characters, are companion novels. They may be read individually, in any order, but collectively, they form a rich tableau of life in rural mountain Kentucky in the last century.

In World War II-era rural Kentucky, twenty-two-year-old Easter and Anneth, her teenaged sister, lose their parents young, so they must raise each other. Easter finds her life in the Pentecostal Holiness church and its music, while Anneth dances and drinks in less-than-holy honky-tonks. Will the differences in their young lives and in their very natures tear them apart or will the bond of the sisters prevail? In lucid prose with an ear for the voice of the sisters’ time and place, Silas House brings readers a rich and moving story of coal country.This novel was named The Appalachian Book of the Year, and was a finalist for the Southern Book Critics Circle Prize.Blair brings this novel into a beautiful new paperback edition, along with two other Silas House novels, Clay’s Quilt and A Parchment of Leaves. The three novels, which share a common setting and some characters, are companion novels. They may be read individually, in any order, but collectively, they form a rich tableau of life in rural mountain Kentucky in the last century.

A timely and poignant poetry collection by acclaimed author and former Poet Laureate of Kentucky Silas House, including the poem read at Governor Andy Beshear’s 2023 inauguration and an interview by Barbara Kingsolver.Silas House is known throughout the South as a quintessential person of letters—a novelist, music journalist, environmental activist, columnist, and the former Poet Laureate of Kentucky. His first full-length collection of poetry blends his Appalachian upbringing with his ongoing relation to the natural world. Poems of praise for community and the collective appear alongside others tinged with nostalgia and grief when House keenly observes the loss of rural America as he once knew it. Returning to his touchstone subjects, Silas recalls wild places, echoes stories from a lingering and living past, and explores an abiding connection to family, friends, and fellow artists.

Highlander serves as a catalyst for grassroots organizing and movement building in Appalachia and the South. We work with people fighting for justice, equality and sustainability, supporting their efforts to take collective action to shape their own destiny. Through popular education, participatory research, and cultural work, we help create spaces — at Highlander and in local communities — where people gain knowledge, hope and courage, expanding their ideas of what is possible. We develop leadership and help create and support strong, democratic organizations that work for justice, equality and sustainability in their own communities and that join with others to build broad movements for social, economic and restorative environmental change.

According to archivists at the Library of Congress, South Carolina is richer in folklore than any other state. After traveling almost every back road in several South Carolina counties, Nancy Rhyne wholeheartedly supports the claim. With her tape recorder in hand, the author interviewed dozens of Low Country people, finding that almost every person had a story to tell. She sought out everyone from millionaires to the humblest of coastal people. From their narratives she has fashioned a collection of stories steeped in the history and character of the Low Country. Some of the tales in this collection are humorous, some mysterious. Others are positively eerie. There are stories of killer hurricanes, bizarre voodoo practices and inexplicable happenings. Effortlessly, the author takes us from a gorgeous plantation estate of the 1850s to an overgrown and forbidding cemetery in 1979. And she never fails to keep our attention on this somewhat alien but fascinating world—a world peopled with witch doctors, ghosts, cruel overseers, slaves and world-famous personalities. Nancy Rhyne has taken scattered bits of folklore and oral narratives, combined these with her gift of storytelling, and created a wonderfully engaging book that will entertain readers for years to come.Nancy Rhyne has traveled all over the world and has collected coastal folklore on three continents, Greece, and the British Isles. But her first love is the South Carolina coast, and she has written dozens of articles and books about the area, its history, and its legends. While living in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, she taught a course on South Carolina folklore at Coastal Carolina College in Conway. She now lives in Ft. Myers, Florida.

First published in 1956, this popular classic tells the story of the small island of Ocracoke, certainly one of the loveliest pearls on the Outer Banks. Rich in history and legend, Ocracoke is a storyteller's dream. Carl Goerch had a sixty-year love affair with the island, and he does it justice in these entertaining and humorous stories. Goerch captures Ocracoke as it was more than sixty years ago, preserving it for the reader and vacationer of today. Many things have changed since his extended visits to the island. There are paved roads, police and a bank now, and most of the conveniences of modern life. Yet many things remain the same. The simple lifestyle, the spirit of the hardy islanders, the legends of pirates, storms and shipwrecks, the charm and beauty of the unspoiled beaches.The late Carl Goerch was known as "Mr. North Carolina." He excelled in several fields: as the long-term reading clerk for the state house of representatives, a popular broadcaster, newspaper columnist, book author, and a widely sought speaker "full of good humor." Goerch also founded the popular magazine The State, still published today as Our State. He had visited all fifty states and fifty-two foreign countries, but if you asked him his favorite spot on earth, he no doubt would have said Ocracoke.

Former slaves themselves—an important but long-neglected source of information about the institution of slavery in the United States. Who could better describe what slavery was like than the people who experienced it? And describe it they did, in thousands of remarkable interviews sponsored by the Federal Writers’ Project during the 1930s. More than 170 interviews were conducted in North Carolina. Belinda Hurmence pored over each of the North Carolina narratives, compiling and editing 21 of the first-person accounts for this collection.Belinda Hurmence was born in Oklahoma, raised in Texas, and educated at the University of Texas and Columbia University. She has written several novels for young people, including Tough Tiffany (an ALA Notable Book), A Girl Called Boy (winner of the Parents' Choice Award), Tancy (winner of a Golden Kite Award), and The Nightwalker.She has also edited We Lived in a Little Cabin in the Yard and Before Freedom, When I Just Can Remember, companion volumes to this book. She now lives in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Silk Flags and Cold Steel recalls the events that took place in the Piedmont region of North Carolina between late 1860 and mid-1865. Though the skirmishes in the Piedmont were more strategic than tactical, they were important to the health of the Southern cause. As long as the railways of North Carolina were operating freely and the state's farms were producing to capacity, Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia could move, eat, fight, and replenish itself. North Carolina's relations with the Confederate government of Jefferson Davis were complex, touchy, and often antagonistic, for the state had been reluctant to secede and there was strong Unionist sentiment throughout the state. President Davis never particularly trusted North Carolina, a fact that blinded him to the state's strategic value. Paradoxically, no state contributed more to the Confederate cause in terms of manpower and resources than did North Carolina. Along with discussion of the political climate, the book presents accounts of the Salisbury prison, Sherman's march through the Carolinas, confrontations at Bentonville, Raleigh, and Greensboro, and Joe Johnston's surrender at Bennett's Farm.William R. (Bill) Trotter is an essayist, book reviewer, and author of The Civil War in North Carolina and A Frozen Hell, among other books, as well as several short stories and novellas, and has twice been nominated for the Bram Stoker Award. He wrote a monthly column called "The Desktop General" for PC Gamer magazine until 2004. He was the first recipient of the North Carolina English Teachers' Association "Lifetime Achievement Award." He lives in Greensboro, NC.

Bushwhackers recounts hundreds of incidents that brought the Civil War home to the mountains of the Old North State. Some are violent, some humorous; some are heroic, some shameful. From the opening shots of the war to the vicious acts of vengeance that continued for months and even years after the war ended, Bushwhackers relates the tragic and rarely told tale of how the Civil War was fought among the proud mountain people of North Carolina.William R. (Bill) Trotter is an essayist, book reviewer, and author of The Civil War in North Carolina and A Frozen Hell, among other books, as well as several short stories and novellas, and has twice been nominated for the Bram Stoker Award. He wrote a monthly column called "The Desktop General" for PC Gamer magazine until 2004. He was the first recipient of the North Carolina English Teachers' Association "Lifetime Achievement Award." He lives in Greensboro, NC.

Ironclads and Columbiads recounts the exciting battles and events that shook the coast of North Carolina during America's bloodiest war. Throughout the Civil War, North Carolina's coast was of great strategic importance to the Confederacy. Its well-protected coastline offered a perfect refuge for privateers who sallied forth and captured so many Union merchant vessels in the early days of the war that maritime insurance companies in the North went into a panic, forcing the government to mount an expedition against Cape Hatteras. North Carolina's coastal counties and the state's coastal railroad system were vital to the feeding and resupply of Robert E. Lee's army. And even after the tightening blockade and powerful Federal assaults closed off the ports of Charleston, New Orleans, and Mobile, Wilmington continued to provide a haven for blockade runners. That city eventually became the most strategically important location in the entire Confederacy. To subdue Fort Fisher, which stoutly defended Wilmington, the Union was forced to assemble what was then the largest naval and amphibious landing force in American history.William R. (Bill) Trotter is an essayist, book reviewer, and author of The Civil War in North Carolina and A Frozen Hell, among other books, as well as several short stories and novellas, and has twice been nominated for the Bram Stoker Award. He wrote a monthly column called "The Desktop General" for PC Gamer magazine until 2004. He was the first recipient of the North Carolina English Teachers' Association "Lifetime Achievement Award." He lives in Greensboro, NC.

In the 1930s, the Federal Writers’ Project undertook a massive effort at gathering the oral testimony of former slaves. Those ex-slaves were in their declining years by the time of the Great Depression, but Elizabeth Sparks, Elige Davison, and others like them nonetheless provided a priceless record of life under the yoke: where slaves lived, how they were treated, what they ate, how they worked, how they adjusted to freedom. Here, Belinda Hurmence presents the interviews of 21 former Virginia slaves. This is a companion volume to Hurmence’s popular collections of North Carolina and South Carolina slave narratives, My Folks Don’t Want Me to Talk About Slavery and Before Freedom, When I Just Can Remember.Belinda Hurmence was born in Oklahoma, raised in Texas, and educated at the University of Texas and Columbia University. She has written several novels for young people, including Tough Tiffany (an ALA Notable Book), A Girl Called Boy (winner of the Parents' Choice Award), Tancy (winner of a Golden Kite Award), and The Nightwalker. She now lives in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Georgetown County, located between Myrtle Beach and Charleston, South Carolina, is steeped in tales of dynamic men and women who once lived and prospered here. Though these men and women have now passed away, many of their spirits still remain. There are rumored to be over a hundred ghosts in the area, making Georgetown County one of the nation's most haunted locations. Ghosts of Georgetown tells the stories of twenty of these apparitions. The ghosts in these tales range from the woman who died a horrible and tragic death on her wedding day, to the daughter of a former lighthouse keeper who warns sailors of impending storms, to the phantom choir whose voices can still be heard coming from the ruins of its former church. The stories tell of scorned lovers, innocent children, and wealthy plantation owners who have all returned to Georgetown long after their natural lives on earth were over. These tales weave the history of Georgetown's colorful past with the eerie spirits who roam the region in the present.Elizabeth Huntsinger is a South Carolina native whose mother’s family came to the state in the 1600s and whose father immigrated there from Scotland. Her first home in Georgetown County was a 1948-vintage 40-foot mahogany Chris Craft boat anchored in the Waccamaw River. Now a landlubber, she lives in a neighborhood built on the site of one of the area’s many rice plantations. In addition to being a full-time storyteller/literacy instructor for Georgetown County preschoolers, she leads Ghosts of Georgetown Lantern Tours and is an avid Civil War reenactor.

When Wilbur and Orville Wright arrived on North Carolina’s Outer Banks in the year 1900, they were unknown bicycle mechanics who dreamed of powered flight. Even after they achieved the first heavier-than-air, powered flight in the dunes of Kill Devil Hills on December 17, 1903, they remained obscure. But by the time of Orville’s last flights on the Outer Banks in 1911, they were two of the most famous men of the twentieth century. In First in Flight, author Stephen Kirk describes in marvelous detail the undeniable influence that the landscape and people of the Outer Banks had on the Wright Brothers’ quest for flight and, in turn, the lasting effect that the Wright brothers’ success had on this once-desolate region. With its lively and often humorous narrative, First in Flight presents a broader context for the Wrights’ activities on the Outer Banks than any other book about the famous brothers. It details every aspect of the Wrights’ life on the North Carolina coast—the lifesavers they associated with, the local citizens they befriended, the other outsiders who came to the Outer Banks to participate in and report on their experiments, the Wrights’ perspective on local lifestyles, and the locals’ perspective on them.

There was little funny about a war in which 620,000 humans died. But it was finding humor amid devastation that kept Civil War soldiers marching toward the enemy. Union or Confederate, those in command proved adept at making mistakes. Many leaders were drunkards, couldn't speak English, didn't know a cannon's breech from its muzzle. Among the galleries of heroes were: Colonel Edward Baker, who told his Federals to follow the plume of his hat if they wanted to find war—and sent them over a cliff in a panicked retreat; General Felix Zollicoffer, who wore a white raincoat so opposing Federals could see him—but not his eyeglasses so he could see them; Thomas Selfridge of the Union navy, who "found two torpedoes and removed them by placing his vessel over them"; Colonel Alfred Rhett, a captured Southern blue blood whose fancy boots proved too small for every Union officer who coveted them; rum-drinking James Ledlie and dance-instructing Edward Ferrero, generals who kept each other company in a Union bombproof while their men faced slaughter. From Fort Sumter to Appomattox, Civil War Blunders traces the war according to its amusing, often deadly miscues. Lurking behind every significant action, as readers will discover, was someone with a red face.Clint Johnson is a native of Fish Branch, Florida, who has written eight books about the Civil War, as well as biographies and newspaper and magazine articles. He received his journalism degree from the University of Florida, and now lives in North Carolina.

Set off the treacherous Outer Banks of North Carolina during the final days of the First World War, Hatteras Light is the compelling story of the dedicated keepers of the Hatteras lighthouse and their tightly knit community. For generations these men have drawn their livelihood from the sea, served in the rescue of shipwreck victims, and guarded seagoers from the hazardous shoals. Their wives and daughters endure a difficult, solitary life, their fortitude constantly tested. Loyal to one another and to a traditional way of life, the islanders are suspicious of outsiders and censorious of those who leave. The insular world of these Hatterasmen disrupts when a German U-boat reveals itself offshore, indiscriminately sinking civilian and military vessels, challenging the courage of the lifesavers, and signaling the dawning of a darker, less honorable age. Over a few crucial days, we become intimate with these men and women, and with the German officers aboard U-55 who have made the islanders' lives hell. What emerges is an adventure story full of wisdom and compassion, a novel unfailingly accurate in portraying the struggle of man and sea, man against man, and of men and women. Based on historical fact, Philip Gerard's novel is a powerful book whose storytelling represents the most human tendencies in life and art.Philip Gerard is the author of five novels and eight books of nonfiction, including Down the Wild Cape Fear: A River Journey Through the Heart of North Carolina and The Patron Saint of Dreams, winner of the 2012 North American Gold Medal in Essay/Creative Nonfiction from The Independent Publisher.

As the author of twelve ghost story collections, Nancy Roberts may certainly be considered an expert on the subject of the supernatural. In this book, she turns her attention to Georgia, capturing over fifty chilling stories from the Peachtree State. Perhaps no other city in this country is as haunted as Savannah. Beneath this city's romantic façade, lies a multitude of eerie tales. Here, Roberts describes the pirates that still reside in the Pirates' House Restaurant, the angry spirit who haunts the Shrimp Factory restaurant, the strange happenings in the house of Jim Williams—the central character in the book Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil—and many other spooky stories. The ghost stories of Savannah are only the beginning, though, for Georgia Ghosts takes you on a supernatural tour throughout the state. On St. Simons Island, you will shiver at the account of the ghost who haunts the island's lighthouse. In Atlanta, you'll hear of the ghost who now resides in the "Uncle Remus" House. In Fayetteville, you'll learn why the legendary gunslinger "Doc" Holliday still waits outside the home of a lost love. And you will wonder about the identity of the mysterious man responsible for Georgia's own version of Stonehenge located near Elberton. From haunted college towns and opera houses to tales of werewolves that roam the countryside, no other collection covers the contemporary and classic ghost stories of the state as completely as Georgia Ghosts.Nancy Roberts, a popular Southern writer and storyteller, was the acclaimed, award-winning author of more than twenty-five books where she blended suspense, mystery, and history with a talent for finding true stories of the supernatural. She was aptly proclaimed the "Custodian of the Twilight Zone" by Southern Living magazine, and was frequently introduced as the "First Lady of Folklore." She was the featured speaker or teller at the North Carolina Museum of History; Thalian Hall in Wilmington, North Carolina; Kiawah Island Resort, South Carolina; University of Illinois at De Kalb; and at many schools and libraries throughout the southeast. She passed away in the fall of 2008.

Witches who fly down chimneys. A chair that won’t release its occupant until a drop of blood stains the floor. A mountain that grew—and continues to grow—from the grave of a woman who was larger than life. The ghost of a woman who jumps on the bumpers of cars driving past the graveyard where she is buried. An apple tree that growls at people who pick its fruit. A woman who rose from her grave each night to get food for a baby born to her after she was buried. A peach tree that grows on the head of a deer. These and other legends and ghost stories handed down for generations are contained in this collection of 25 tales from East Tennessee.For several years, folklorists Randy Russell and Janet Barnett have taught a course about Southern folklore at the North Carolina Center for Advancement of Teaching in Cullowhee, North Carolina. Russell is also the author of several mysteries, including Edgar Award nominee Hot Wire.They live in Asheville, North Carolina.

From Linville Gorge to the Davidson River Valley, the land comprising Pisgah National Forest has been a source of pleasure to hikers for generations. This guide details almost 100 of the forest's finest trails, selected for their views, the waterfalls they visit, and the diversity of plant and animal life present. The authors hiked all the trails using a hand-held GPS unit. Each trail entry includes distance, elevation gained, GPS coordinates at various points, and a detailed description of the terrain and landscape. The guide also includes maps, as well as sidebars on first aid and items of historic and botanical interest. Black-and-white photos are scattered throughout. Appendixes provide lists of loop trails, hikes for children and the elderly, half-day and full-day hikes, and trails accessible from the Blue Ridge Parkway.Franklin Goldsmith has a degree in philosophy from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and received a degree in engineering from North Carolina State University. His sister, Shannon Hamrick, and her husband, James Hamrick, both held undergraduate and medical degrees from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Franklin and Shannon grew up in McDowell County, North Carolina, at the edge of the Grandfather District of Pisgah National Forest. All three are experienced hikers.

After the fall of Charleston during the American Revolution, South Carolina was devoid of any organized resistance to the British army. It was under these circumstances that Francis Marion organized his famous band of partisans. They resorted to hit-and-run tactics, operating out of the impenetrable swamps of the region. Every man and boy who joined Marion's force was a volunteer. Everyone furnished his own clothing and weapons. When Marion issued a call, his men left their farms and reported with arms in hand. Under Marion's clever direction, the band eluded British general Banastre Tarleton so frequently that he was recalled by Cornwallis. As Tarleton left, he remarked, "As for this damned old fox, the devil himself could not catch him." The nickname "Swamp Fox" stuck with Marion from then on. After the war, those who knew of Marion's exploits pressured Peter Horry, one of Marion's closest friends and an officer in his brigade, to write a biography of the hero. Horry later sent his manuscript to Mason L. "Parson" Weems, who had gained fame for his publication of The Life of Washington. Just as he had evoked poetic license with the story of young Washington chopping down a cherry tree, Weems took liberties to spice up Marion's story. Horry therefore disassociated himself from the book when it was published in 1824. William Gilmore Simms, who wrote a later biography of Marion, described Weems's efforts: "Weems had rather loose notions of the privileges of the biographer, though in reality, he has transgressed much less in his Life of Marion than I generally supposed. But the untamed, and sometimes extravagant exuberance, of his style might well subject his narrative to suspicion." Recently, Hollywood has shown renewed interest in the life of the Swamp Fox, so it seems only appropriate that the first biography of this true American hero be made easily accessible once again. Marion's daring, cunning, and adventuresome spirit still inspire admiration over 200 years later. And although Weems may have taken some liberties with the facts, he sure tells a whopping good story.

Williamsburg, Yorktown, and Jamestown comprise Virginia's historic triangle. Some of the most important chapters of America's history unfolded in these settlements. The region has been the scene of violent confrontations between settlers and the original natives, an emotional struggle for independence, a bitter civil war, and, most recently, a transformation into one of the country's finest examples of historic restoration. Some parapsychologists believe that spirits can be awakened by a sudden flurry of activity. With so much activity occurring throughout the area's history, it is little wonder that there are so many documented sightings of ghosts in this triangle. In this book, Jackie Behrend brings together thirty-seven of the region's most intriguing spirits. From Williamsburg come tales about the Wagon of Death, which can still be heard rolling down Nicholson Street as it brings prisoners to the gallows; the colonial celebrations that continue at the Raleigh Tavern; the residential area where all is quiet except for the ghosts still fighting the Revolutionary War; and the ongoing wedding that brings men form both sides of the Civil War together. From Yorktown come stories about the sounds that emanate from the cave where Lord Cornwallis hid during the town's siege during 1781; the mournful tune that is heard on Surrender Field; and the melancholy feeling that overcomes people retracing the path where slaves were once marched. From Jamestown comes the tale of a deserted lover's angry ghost who still haunts the banks of the James River. From Carter's Grove comes the story of a slave who still searches Old Country Road for his lost family. Just as you can step back in time by visiting the restored settlements of the historic triangle, you can now revisit the past through the stories about the ghostly spirits who haunt Williamsburg, Yorktown, and Jamestown.When Hauntings of Williamsburg, Yorktown, and Jamestown was written, Jackie Eileen Behrend was the owner of J.B. Tours, which offered guided tours of the historic Triangle. Her most popular tour, “The Haunted Williamsburg Tour”, was conducted by lantern light and featured many of the stories in this book. Jackie later moved to Ocean City, Maryland, where she led tours of Ocean City and Berlin. She now lives in Pensacola, Florida.

In 1985 Jan DeBlieu moved to Hatteras Island and took up residence in the old home of one of the Outer Banks' most historic families. For more than a year she explored the island's dunes, marshes, waters, and towns to study its complex natural cycles, its fragile ecosystem, its bird, plant, and marine life, and the seasonal routines of its stoical residents. In Hatteras Journal she writes evocatively of a harsh but alluring world, where "in summer the sea oats explode with tawny seeds, the black shimmers glide over Pamlico Sound, the loggerheads heave themselves ashore on silent nights." Along with her perceptive observations about the natural life she encounters, she describes the futility of former government policies such as dune construction, the dangers of peat mining to the sounds and bays, the efforts to protect loggerhead turtles on Bald Head Island, and the evolution of Hurricane Gloria and its effects on the barrier islands. This is a vividly rendered account of the rigors and rewards of dwelling in a habitat where only the most resilient forms of life—natural and human—manage to prevail.Jan DeBlieu is the author of four books and dozens of articles and essays about people and nature. Her first book, Hatteras Journal(Fulcrum 1987), is considered a regional classic on the Outer Banks. It was reprinted in paper by John Blair, Publisher in 1998. Meant to Be Wild (Fulcrum 1991) was chosen as one of the best science books of the year by Library Journal. Wind (Houghton Mifflin, 1998; Shoemaker & Hoard 2006) won the John Burroughs Medal for Distinguished Natural History Writing, the highest national award given for a volume of nature writing. Year of the Comets: A Journey from Sadness to the Stars was published by Shoemaker & Hoard in Spring 2005. All Jan’s books remain in print. Year of the Comets was released in paper in December 2006. Most of Jan’s work explores the subtle ways we are shaped by the landscapes where we live and work. She has contributed essays to many national publications, including The New York Times, Audubon, and Orion.  In the spring of 2003 Jan was named the Cape Hatteras Coastkeeper for the North Carolina Coastal Federation, a grassroots environmental group that works to protect coastal waters from pollution. A longtime environmental activist, in the late 1980s she helped form a group that successfully kept oil companies from drilling off the Outer Banks. She lives on Roanoke Island with her husband and son.“Not since Ben MacNeil wrote The Hatterasman in the 1950s has that bare bone of sand between Bodie and Ocracoke islands been written about so affectionately, intelligently, and well.” —Norfolk Virginian-Pilot

On October 3, 1960, The Andy Griffith Show began its eight-year reign as one of the top-ten television shows in the country. Now, almost 50 years later, the original 249 episodes still remain among the most frequently watched syndicated shows on television. In 1991, Neal Brower began to write a regular column called "Professor Brower's Class" in The Bullet, the newsletter for the show's fan club, The Andy Griffith Show Rerun Watchers Club. The Bullet, which was published three times a year, was distributed to approximately 15,000 members of the 1,000 worldwide chapters. In his column, Brower focused on one of the show's episodes. Through interviews with writers, directors, producers, actors, and other people associated with the show, Brower offered insights into the scriptwriting, production, photography, casting, and musical scoring. Although Brower's first few columns consisted primarily of his personal observations and comments about the episode, later columns concentrated on letting the participants tell the Mayberry story. Brower realized that the pace of writing only three episodes a year was too slow a process. The stories that he discovered needed to be told before the memories faded. This book resulted from the need to tell the story in a more timely format. In this volume, Brower focuses on the 79 episodes written by Harvey Bullock, Everett Greenbaum, Sam Bobrick, and their partners. These writers were responsible for such popular episodes as "Opie the Birdman," "Mr. McBeevee," "My Fair Ernest T. Bass," "The Pickle Story," "A Date for Gomer," and "The Darlings Are Coming." When asked if he would help with this project, writer Everett Greenbaum responded, "Neal, I will be glad to answer your questions because I feel it is important to keep the memories alive." Thanks to Everett and all who shared their observations, Mayberry 101 now preserves a behind-the-scenes peak at the Mayberry story.Neal Brower, a United Methodist minister, teaches a ten-week course about The Andy Griffith Show at community colleges throughout North Carolina. Since 1988, he has taught the course over twenty times at six colleges. He is a native of Asheboro, North Carolina.

In 1929, the Social Sciences Department at Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee, began recording the oral histories of former slaves. During the mid-1930s, the Federal Writers’ Project undertook a similar effort, ultimately compiling more than two thousand interviews and ten thousand pages of material in seventeen states. In this volume, thirty-six former slaves living in Tennessee recount what it was like to live under the yoke. Tennessee was not a large slaveholding state compared with others in the South. On the other hand, it was a leader in the abolition movement prior to 1830 and a powder keg of mixed Union and Confederate sympathies at the time of the Civil War. The voices in this volume thus recall the extreme conditions of slavery in the border country.Originally from San Antonio, Andrea Sutcliffe has a journalism degree from the University of Texas at Austin. She was a writer, editor, and publications manager in the Washington, DC, area for twenty years. Her writing and editing career began in 1990 as director of the EEI Press in Alexandria, Virginia. In 1996, Andrea Sutcliffe moved to Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley to devote herself full-time to writing. Andrea’s love of her new home in the mountains of western Virginia, and a desire to learn more about the region’s fascinating history, led to her book, Touring the Shenandoah Valley Backroads.

During the Great Depression, the Federal Writers’ Project engaged jobless writers and researchers to interview former slaves about their experiences in bondage. Most of the interviewees were by then in their eighties and nineties, and their memories were soon to be lost to history. The effort was a huge success, eventually encompassing more than two thousand interviews and ten thousand pages of material across seventeen states. This collection presents the personal narratives of twenty-eight former Georgia slaves. As editor Andrew Waters notes, the “two ends of the human perspective—terror and joy” are often evident within the same interviews, as the ex-slaves tell of the abuses they endured while they simultaneously yearn for younger, simpler days. The result is a complex mix of emotions spoken out of a dark past that must not be forgotten.Andrew Waters is a writer and former editor. A native North Carolinian, he graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with Honors in Creative Writing and received a graduate degree from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. He is the executive director of the Spartanburg Area Conservancy in Spartanburg, SC.

Whether you like sleeping among spirits or simply enjoy reading a good ghost story, Haunted Inns of the Southeast is your guide to ninety mysterious places across nine states. At the Don Cesar Resort in St. Petersburg, Florida, you might witness a man dressed like Panama Jack chatting with workers. He is Thomas Rowe, the resort's founder, who died more than sixty years ago. At the Andrew Jackson Hotel in New Orleans—America's most openly haunted city—the courtyard is turned into a playground by orphans who perished in a fire many years past. At the Grove Park Inn in Asheville, North Carolina, author Sheila Turnage checks into room 545 and tries to solve the mystery of the "Pink Lady." In Union, South Carolina, guests at the Merridun may be joined in bed by the ghost of a little white dog. You'll be both chilled and amused by these stories, some of which are related here for the first time by the inns' owners and employees. You'll also appreciate the hard information—addresses, phone numbers, price ranges—in case you'd like to pay a visit.Sheila Turnage's Three Times LuckyMo and Dale Mystery series was a Newbery Honor winner, New York Times bestseller, Edgar Award Finalist, and E.B. White Read-Aloud Honor book. Her writing has appeared in Southern Living, Early American Homes, American Legacy, International Poetry Review, and many other publications. She lives on a farm in eastern North Carolina.

In his introduction to Prayin’ to Be Set Free, Andrew Waters likens the personal accounts of former Mississippi slaves to the music of that state’s legendary blues artists. The pain, the modest eloquence, and even the underlying vitality are much the same. What is now Mississippi wasn’t acquired by the United States until 1798, at which time it had fewer than 10,000 inhabitants, excluding Native Americans. By the Civil War, it had over 430,000 slaves and 350,000 whites. More than half the whites were members of slave-owning families. The majority of slaves worked in the cotton fields. Mississippi was known as a slave-buying frontier state, in contrast to the eastern states, which sold slaves westward. Indeed, many of the former slaves in this book speak of coming to Mississippi as children. At the height of the Depression, the out-of-work wordsmiths who comprised the Federal Writers’ Project began interviewing elderly African-Americans about their experiences under slavery. The former slaves were more than 70 years removed from bondage, but the memories of many of them were strikingly clear. The accounts from former Mississippi slaves are considered among the strongest in the entire collection. The 28 narratives presented here are the best of those.Andrew Waters is a writer and former editor. A native North Carolinian, he graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with Honors in Creative Writing and received a graduate degree from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. He is the executive director of the Spartanburg Area Conservancy in Spartanburg, SC.

From the time they established formal ties with Great Britain in 1730, the Cherokees had a rocky relationship with white settlers. They found grounds for dispute over trade practices, territorial control, and the complicated loyalties among the various Indian tribes and European powers. Over the years, the Cherokees struggled to maintain their ancient traditions as the tribe was assimilated into the white man’s culture. Cherokee Voices uses the participants’ own words to tell the story of early Cherokee life. The selections were gathered from journals, treaty records, and correspondence written by Cherokees or by Europeans or Americans who knew them. The excerpts begin with the 1730 visit of Alexander Cuming, who appointed an “emperor” for the Cherokees. Touching on matters as varied as the Cherokees’ oral tradition, their village life, their ball games, their treaties with white settlers, their famous Cherokee Phoenix newspaper, and their education in Christian mission schools, the chapters take readers from when the Cherokees were dependent on European trade to when they became self-sufficient farmers and tradesmen. Unlike most books about the Cherokees, written in the third person by authors who lived years after the events, this one recognizes that no one can speak more eloquently of their lives, trials, and customs than the people themselves.Vicki Rozema is the author of Footsteps of the Cherokees: A Guide to the Eastern Homelands of the Cherokee Nation and Voices from the Trail of Tears. The first edition of Footsteps of the Cherokees received an Award of Merit from the Tennessee Historical Commission in 1996. Also an acclaimed photographer, she is a history professor at the University of Tennessee.