Salvation South

07/18/2025

Come listen to Chuck and talk about their Nazi-fighting ancestors. It will do your heart good.

https://www.salvationsouth.com/southern-world-war-ii-ancestry-stories/

07/18/2025

You asked, we delivered! Our sticker with the same design has captured the imagination of bookworms across the land. So now you have something comfy to waller in while reading your latest literary acquisition.

Looking for the perfect gift for your favorite introverted bookworm? Well, here it is. The Disgusted With Life, She Retired to the Society of Books t-shirt says it all for folks who don't say much - unless they have to. Get yours today!

07/17/2025

Do not read this story hungry. Anna Rollins—a writer who knows her way around Appalachian joy—takes you through the messy, communal, and occasionally sacred hot dog stands of West Virginia. Come for the chili sauce, stay for the characters, and find out what happens when an avowed skeptic bites in.

https://www.salvationsouth.com/hot-dog-hallelujah-west-virginia-hillbilly-hotdogs/

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07/13/2025

A battered WWII canteen, a folk song, and a pilgrimage across Europe—Abe Partridge and Chuck Reece connect personal family legacies to the broader truth about who our Southern heroes truly are. Abe debuts his new single and documentary film, JJP From Elba ALA, and Chuck’s essay inpired by both invite you to reconsider what Southerners should—and shouldn’t—forget about our past.

https://www.salvationsouth.com/southern-world-war-ii-ancestry-stories/

07/05/2025

After a dire diagnosis, novelist Lis Anna-Langston began walking to Thomas Wolfe’s grave, leaving pencils and prayers among the moss-covered stones. Her narrated, visual essay—a first for Salvation South—captures how a dead writer’s restless spirit steadied her own fight to live.

https://www.salvationsouth.com/afternoons-with-tom-lis-anna-langston/

07/04/2025

Kentucky poet Lucie Brooks, winner of the Chaffin/Kash Prize, weighs fireworks against fear in a searing new poem about raising Black sons below the Mason-Dixon. Each line snaps like a match struck in the dark, demanding we witness the country’s unfinished work.

https://www.salvationsouth.com/lucie-brooks-on-the-fourth-of-july-poem/

07/04/2025

As we approach the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, we here at Salvation South are reminded that our country was founded on the notion that we were all created equal and endowed with inalienable rights. We also hold fast to the notion that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. We will continue uphold these precepts of freedom by publishing the works of artists who celebrate these beliefs with us. We hope their works will give you the courage to stand on the right side of history.

#1776 🇺🇸

06/30/2025

Celebrate the close of Pride Month by honoring Truman Capote—an openly gay literary icon from the Deep South who defied expectations and lived authentically, even in an era when homosexuality was criminalized. Capote’s groundbreaking works, like Other Voices, Other Rooms and In Cold Blood, not only reshaped American literature but also brought q***r voices into the mainstream. Let’s remember Capote’s courage, creativity, and lasting impact as we continue to champion diversity and authenticity in storytelling. 🌈📚

06/29/2025

Get an exclusive taste of Tuesday’s release, “The Life and Poetry of Frank Stanford,” as McWilliams drops you into the poet’s final, electric days. From all-night edits on a 15,283-line epic to a pistol’s fatal flash, this excerpt shows genius and self-destruction racing neck and neck.

https://www.salvationsouth.com/frank-stanford-biography-james-mcwilliams-excerpt/

06/29/2025

Historian James McWilliams recounts the seven obsessive years he spent chasing Frank Stanford’s myth across levee camps, archives, and dive bars. With every lead, Stanford’s contradictions—sweet-tongued surrealist and self-made outlaw—grow sharper, and McWilliams’s understanding that the South we need is the one Stanford envisioned.

https://www.salvationsouth.com/frank-stanford-biography-salvation-south/

06/28/2025

As we bring Pride Month to a close, we celebrate the fearless poet, Willie Carver. Read his poems and interview with Andy Fogle from 2024. We are proud to have him in the Salvation South family.

https://www.salvationsouth.com/the-space-dividing-us-must-be-destroyed-wille-edward-taylor-carver-jr-poems-and-interview/

06/28/2025

In the latest chapter of our “Fifty Years of Ferris” series, Chuck Reece sits down with legendary folklorist Bill Ferris to revisit his landmark 1975 documentary, Two Black Churches. Step inside the rural Rose Hill Church in Mississippi and the urban St. James Church in Connecticut, and witness how Black churches have been anchors of resilience, activism, and culture—across generations and geography. Watch the film, watch their conversation, and see how these sanctuaries echo through all of American life.

https://www.salvationsouth.com/fifty-years-of-ferris-two-black-churches/