66 Quotes About Southern-writers

While writing the first draft is an exercise in shutting down all of the things we think we know so that the story features come tumbling out, the revision is the end of the joy ride. We pull on the gloves and sort of poke around inside the body. Is that a tumor? Will that limb need amputation? I nearly second-guessed myself into heart failure while learning to self-edit.

Our souls are salt-water cured. - Liz Talbot, Lowcountry Boil.

The central character is an incomplete package of yearning that takes the length of the novel to complete. Completion, though, is not to be confused with perfection.

I started out hoping to remind people at some point in the novel that we should be loving and kind. But then the theme usurped my life, spilling over into my novels until love was no longer a small voice, but now my purpose as a writer.

Arising there, a china cabinet, its gifts enclosed in a hug.Atop a pedestal table, hand-sanded and love-stained,Mom's Christmas cactus trails and cascades in forest greensawaiting pink-winged petals alighting in season, a crescendo of bloom framed an autumn-light meandering through remembrance like a dream.

Because I will always remember that when I told her I needed help burying a body, the first thing she said was, "Let me go get my shovel.

The American South is an authentic American Culture. Maybe the last. The north is just a Casserole Culture – a tasteless vat of leftovers, frozen peas and stale crumbs.

So that I might face my past,I dug these words from the richest southern soiland held them in my hands like seeds waiting for rain.

Them dandelion wishes float and float for miles hoping they might get lucky and find a place to root.