Various illustrations for Southern Cultures, Vol. 26, No. 3: The Women’s Issue

The basic facts of the disaster were clear enough. In the middle of a hot August night in 1891, train number nine, heading west toward the mountains on the Western North Carolina Railroad, pulled into Statesville an hour later than scheduled. Ten new passengers boarded the train. Then five minutes after it left the station, riders experienced a jolt and falling sensation as the freight tumbled off Bostian’s Bridge and dropped 60 feet into the creek below.

This was a fun one. For Ghosts, Wreckers, and Rotten Ties.

Drawing of The Center for the Study of the American South for opening Front Porch essay of vol. 24, no. 3.

“I can’t believe this place.” Blake stretched his arms wide, the pale outline of his body silhouetted against the purple evening air and the black folds of Bethlehem Mountain. “I can’t imagine anywhere more perfect,” he said as he lay down on the roof. I watched him, laid out there, eyes closed, chest rising and falling, and I’d wanted that moment to stretch on forever, wanted my life to be one looped track of that instant there.

For an online feature of Sipsipica, a wonderful story by Mesha Maren.

The dog days of August on the Eastern Shore of Virginia can test the bounds of human hope and endurance. The breezes go still, humidity populates the roads with optic distortions that appear as giant black snakes rippling from a verge of browning grass and then evaporating into the radiant heat. Cicadas scream their songs of lust and death.

From The Scent of Corn: Remembering Jean Mihalyka by Bernard L. Herman

My friend Bill McIntire, a Lewes native, wrote me, “We just always have it as a side at Christmas morning breakfast with bacon, eggs, scrapple, etc., there's always some left over for subsequent breakfasts, but we never had it any other time. The pone is large, like I said, so often one pone will get split up so that several households can have some for their Christmas.”

From Beyond Grits & Gravy: Hannah Mary's Corn Pone by Bernard L. Herman

Their fridge overflowed with leafy greens, sleeves of bread, and trays of tofu. Flies buzzed around a mason jar full of compost. Well-loved pots hung from hooks in the window trim. A light film of dust on the counter countered the burnished perfection of Jen’s classic appliances.

From An Education in Cast Iron from the South’s Greatest Unknown Punk Trio by André Gallant