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Issue 73, Summer 2011

Best of the South Vol. VI

“You know you’ve been out of the South too long when you’re cruising in lazy-making sunshine down a road so flat the land seems to have stretched itself out for a nap…and still you can’t help but creep up on the slowpoke ahead until you’re close enough to read bumper stickers going all the way back to the first Bush.” — Josh Weil, “Ode to a Mississippi Patrolman”

Essays by Elizabeth Kaiser, Bronwen Dickey, John Oliver Hodges, Diane Roberts, Steve Almond, Wes Enzina, and others. Fiction by Cary Holladay, Stephanie Powell Watts and John Brandon.

Odes by Megan Mayhew Bergman, Kate Sweeney, Drew Bratcher, Michael Parker, and more.

Columns & Departments

Editor’s Box
by Marc Smirnoff

South Toward Home
BILLY SHAKESPEARE: SOUTHERN MAN
by Warwick Sabin

Dealer’s Choice
BIBLE BELT BLUES
by Hal Crowther

I Don’t Hate It!
GOD’S LITTLE WISEACRE
by Jack Pendarvis

Local Fare
RANT WITH COLLARDS
by John T. Edge

Writers on Dating
LIKE (LOVE!) IN MISSISSIPPI
by Elizabeth Kaiser

THE SICKNESS, THE DINOSAURS, BABY DAN, AND THE SWOLLEN HAND
by Mike Powell

Art
CRUSING THE GLORY ROADS
by Diane Roberts

THE BEST PAINTER OF ANYTHING ON EARTH
by Steve Almond

Southern Lit
KISSING THE BUDDHA
by John Oliver Hodges

Travel
THE RAPTURE OF THE DEEP
by Bronwen Dickey

After the Storm
by Carolyn Mikulencak

Writing on Writing
by Beth Rudolph

Books

by Alexander Provan
by Eric Reece
by J.B. Slogan
by Kevin Brockmeier
by William Caverlee

Poetry

My Mother Says Tahmarah
by Laura Richardson

What We Call This Frog Hunting
by Jane Springer

Local Weather
by Peter Cooley

Men in Macon
by Jimmy Gieselman

Meeting Karen White, Descendant of Jefferson's Gardener Wormley
by Tess Taylor

Features

THE BEST PARTY EVER
But what's wrong with Mama?
a story by Cary Holladay

LAST SUMMER
I had no fantasy life. Maybe I needed one.
a story by John Brandon

WE ARE TAKING ONLY WHAT WE NEED
Our new, white babysitter quickly became the subtext to all of our talks and speculations.
a story by Stephanie Powell Watts

RIDIN’ DIRTY FACE
The Train Photography of Mike Brodie
by Wes Enzinna

Odes: Best of the South 2011

An Old Hot Rod
by Drew Bratcher

The Best Place to Buy a Uniform
by Michael Parker

An Outlandish Gumbo
by Sara Roahen

The Blood Bank Cats
by Megan Mayhew Bergman

An Orange
by Jonathan Rabb

Not Falling
by Kate Sweeney

A Mississippi Patrolman
by Josh Weil

An Outhouse
by Sarah Courteau

Vdeo Crack
by Jennifer S. Davis

Cover: “Double Self Portrait” by Gary Bolding