Dot Jackson is a true Southern voice, a master storyteller and an Appalachian treasure” (Dori Sanders, author of Clover and Her Own Place).   Early one morning in 1929, Mary Seneca Steele spontaneously packs a suitcase, gathers up her son and daughter, and steals away in her abusive and dissolute husband’s brand new Auburn Phaeton automobile leaving her privileged life in Charleston behind. It is the beginning of a journey of enlightenment that leads Mary “Sen” to the mountains and mysteries of Appalachia where she will learn unexpected family secrets, create a new life for herself and her children, and finally experience love and happiness before tragedy will once again test her.   Written by an authentic Southern voice, Dot Jackson has spun a story that will captivate readers looking for an entertaining saga of self-discovery, family, love, loss and redemption.   “Refuge is a wonderful story about the need to find one’s place in the world—and the price paid to remain there. With her narrative gift and keen ear for Appalachian speech, Dot Jackson gives her readers a beautifully rendered portrait of a lost time and place.” —Ron Rash, author of Serena and The Cove

    Also included are a Kitchen Basics chapter and an abundance of enticing photographs.

    But the serene beauty of Lake Ophelia cannot heal Caroline's heart, which is still broken by the loss of her younger brother, who died when she was seventeen. And the tension between her and her mother still simmers. Only their neighbors, the husband and daughter of one of Caroline's childhood friends, seem able to penetrate her cool reserve, giving Caroline the courage to face her biggest fears-and dive headfirst into life.

    Armed with a box of crayons and a book called How to Build Your Home in the Woods, they drew up plans to recycle a slave-built structure into a houseboat. Without power tools or building experience they constructed a floating dwelling complete with a brick fireplace. Towed deep into the sleepy waters of Bloody Bayou, it was their home for eight years. This is the tale of the not-so-simple life they made together -- days spent fishing, trading, making wine, growing food, and growing up -- told by Gwen with grace, economy, and eloquence.Not long after they took up swamp living, Gwen and Calvin met a young photographer named C. C. Lockwood, who shared their back to the earth values. His photographs of the couple going about their daily routine were published in National Geographic magazine, bringing them unexpected fame. More than a quarter of a century later, after Gwen and Calvin had long since parted, one of Lockwood's photos of them appeared in a National Geographic collector's edition entitled 100 Best Pictures Unpublished -- and kindled the interest of a new generation.With quiet wisdom, Gwen recounts her eight-year voyage of discovery -- about swamp life, wildlife, and herself. A keen observer of both the natural world and the ways of human beings, she transports readers to an unfamiliar and exotic place.

    Volume 1 will take you to the heart of Southern Utah, home to some of the Colorado Plateau's most outstanding highlights. Beyond the National Parks of the famed ?Grand Circle?, you?ll discover many hidden locations of Red Rock Country as well as Indian rock art and cliff dwellings. The book also makes a quick side trip into Northeastern Utah to explore the remote area around Dinosaur National Monument. Enough for weeks of new discoveries in the area

    The Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook tells the story of the brothers' culinary coming-of-age in Charleston—how they triumphed over their northern roots and learned to cook southern without a southern grandmother. Here are recipes for classics like Fried Chicken, Crab Cakes, and Pecan Pie, as well as little-known preparations such as St. Cecilia Punch, Pickled Peaches, and Shrimp Burgers. Others bear the hallmark of the brothers' resourceful cooking style—simple, sophisticated dishes like Blackened Potato Salad, Saigon Hoppin' John, and Buttermilk-Sweet Potato Pie that usher southern cooking into the twenty-first century without losing sight of its roots. With helpful sourcing and substitution tips, this is a practical and personal guide that will have readers cooking southern tonight, wherever they live.

    He portrays a character looking for love that reaches beyond death--with occasional morbid consequences.

    Unfortunately devils of another breed stayed behind. In the spellbinding novel Where the Road Begins, author Nancy Dane brings alive a time when marauding bushwhackers rode the hills and when women had as much to fear as any soldier. This clash between North and South took a conscripted youth, Elijah Loring, far from the banks of Little Piney Creek down a road where terror and war awaited. After returning home a hardened man, he suffered lost love, and in a lawless land, confronted dangers as great as any endured in the crushed Confederate army.

    But you’ve got to step out, or you’ll never get anywhere. And you keep on going, one step at a time. You have to have faith to go barefooted—you don’t know what you might step on, what pain might come—but you keep on walking. And it makes you tough. Sometimes you skip and jump and run. Sometimes you get a thorn in your toe or trip over a limb, but there’s no turning back. Barefootin’ means getting mud between your toes and dancing on the water! Your spirit is in your feet, and your spirit can run free.In 1933, Unita Blackwell was born in Lula, Mississippi, a tiny town in the Delta where living was as hard as it gets, the stuff of the blues music that originated there. Like the other black people in Lula, Unita grew up in a sharecropping family, riding on her mother’s cotton sack before she was old enough to pick cotton herself. Having left school at age twelve in order to make a living, Unita was trapped in menial jobs, and a bright future seemed beyond her reach. But Unita was forever changed in the summer of 1964 when civil rights workers came to her town of Mayersville, Mississippi. Electrified by the movement, Unita transformed her life from one of despair to one of hope, and in Barefootin’ she details her inspirational rise from poverty to power, from silence to outspokenness, from oppression to freedom.From her rebirth as a freedom fighter and social activist to her tenure as mayor of her home town, to her work as an international peacemaker and presidential advisor, here are all the unlikely turns of Unita’s remarkable life. The lessons she shares affirm and motivate us all, whether it’s to remember that ordinary people can do extraordinary things, that world-changing movements are the result of many small steps, or that freedom means taking responsibility for our own lives and helping to make the world a better place for all. Infused with the language and rhythms of the Delta, Barefootin’ is at once the stirring memoir of an exceptional woman and a guide to living a full and meaningful life from someone who knows how.

    We've got a live one on the Southern literature scene She can ruffle the feathers of the most stoic, mess with the beliefs of the strictest fundamentalists, and reel you into the story like a mean catfish meant for the fryer. She has woven together the music, the language, the religions, and the traditions of the South. The result is SOUTHERN FRIED WOMEN, a collection of nine short stories of Southern women, and a few men, struggling for answers to unanswered questions, hoping for forgiveness, searching for righteousness, and questioning the existence of God in their lives. No Time For Laura, Vernell Paskins-Mobile Home Queen, Punkin Head, Cry, The Homestead, Old Time Religion, Pigment Of My Imagination, Beach Babies, Coal Dust On My Feet In the spirit of the rural South, Pamela King Cable may well be next on the Southern literature scene of unforgettables. These are the stories in this collection that examine - sometimes seriously and at other times with humor - themes of forgiveness, death, love, discovery, racial conflict, faith, tragedy, innocence, destiny, guilt, and overcoming insurmountable obstacles. Set in various locations and time periods in the South, Southern Fried Women is a compelling collection of stories from Pamela King Cable, a powerful new voice in fiction. Cassandra King, author of Making Waves, The Sunday Wife, The Same Sweet Girls, says . "If you don't find yourself devouring this delicious book of stories, by Pamela King Cable, then you are not a Southern Fried Woman (or Man). After laughing and cryingyour way through this collection, you will eagerly await new offerings from this talented writer "

    Now two of the author's most beloved and critically acclaimed masterworks have been combined in one volume.In Up Island, Molly Bell Redwine -- who has always believed that "family is everything" -- is abruptly set adrift by the abandonment of a faithless husband, the death of her domineering mother, and the scattering of her Atlanta clan. Taking refuge with a friend on Martha's Vineyard, Molly's search for strength and a new identity must sustain her through the harsh island winter until she finds renewal in the healing spring.Low Country is the story of Caroline Venable, wealthy, pampered, and dutiful Southern wife, who must make hard decisions and reimagine the life she's never questioned when the beloved wild island that is her heritage and her refuge is suddenly threatened.

    That's because it serves up every tasty recipe from the past year, nearly 1,000 in all. From large family-style meals, to easy-to-pull-together weekend brunches, to everyday family-pleasing treats--with gorgeous photographs, step-by-step instructions, and more than a dash of genteel Southern charm and style. Not that you have to be from the South, by any means, to enjoy these mouthwatering recipes. (Just don't tell that to Southerners.)

    In the sequel to Lowcountry Boil, Sam Larkin, former environmental law officer and ex-con, is lured into an investigation of a Louisiana senator about to be tapped for a vice presidential candidacy--a man who also unjustly sent Sam to prison 12 years earlier.

    Suspecting that something is amiss with their father’s burial, teenager Kenneth Tyler and his sister Corrie venture to his gravesite and make a horrific discovery: their father, a whiskey bootlegger, was not actually buried in the casket they bought for him. Worse, they learn that the undertaker, Fenton Breece, has been grotesquely manipulating the dead.Armed with incriminating photographs, Tyler becomes obsessed with bringing the perverse undertaker to justice. But first, he must outrun Granville Sutter, a local strongman and convicted murderer hired by Fenton to destroy the evidence. What follows is an adventure through the Harrikin, an eerie backwoods filled with tangled roads, rusted machinery, and eccentric squatters–old men, witches, and families among them–who both shield and imperil Tyler as he runs for safety. With his poetic, haunting prose, William Gay rewrites the rules of the gothic fairy tale while exploring the classic Southern themes of good and evil.

    Decorating, crafting, gift giving, cooking, party planning--they're all here, with tips and tricks that will have family and friends thinking you've been preparing for months.

    Now, in this engaging biography, Mark Elliott offers an insightful portrait of a fearless lawyer, jurist, and writer, who fought for equality long after most Americans had abandoned the ideals of Reconstruction. Elliott provides a fascinating account of Tourg�e's life, from his childhood in the Western Reserve region of Ohio (then a hotbed of abolitionism), to his years as a North Carolina judge during Reconstruction, to his memorable role as lead plaintiff's counsel in the landmark Supreme Court case Plessy v. Ferguson. Tourg�e's brief coined the phrase that justice should be color-blind, and his career was one long campaign to make good on that belief. A redoubtable lawyer and an accomplished jurist, Tourg�e's writings represent a mountain of dissent against the prevailing tide of racial oppression. A poignant and inspiring study in courage and conviction, Color-Blind Justice offers us an unforgettable portrayal of Albion Tourg�e and the principles to which he dedicated his life.