Search results for ""John F. Blair Publisher""

John F. Blair, Publisher, continues its Real Voices, Real History™ series with Voices from the Outer Banks. This volume presents the actual words of the people who lived the uncommonly rich history of this chain of barrier islands stretching from the Virginia border southward through Cape Lookout. Readers will enjoy contemporary accounts of the first British settlement in North America and the birth of the first English child on American soil. They’ll read 18th-century letters, articles, and poems about the bloody death of Blackbeard, arguably the most famous of all the pirates. They’ll read the news account of the first powered airplane flights in human history. And the editorial that created America’s first national seashore. And the words of family members who once inhabited the nation’s most iconic lighthouse—part of a matched set of four. Topics include “the Graveyard of the Atlantic,” in a nod to the rough waters that over the centuries have claimed hundreds of vessels, and “Torpedo Junction,” site of “the Great American Turkey Shoot,” the latter nickname bestowed by German submariners during World War II. The volume includes first-person accounts of Civil War battles, a freedmen’s colony, hunt clubs that drew the first wealthy tourists, and lifesavers who used horses to pull surfboats to the water and fired lines by cannon to wrecked vessels. Readers will even hear contemporary stories of the Boy Scout troop that rode ponies descended from ancient shipwrecked animals. Stephen Kirk was an editor at John F. Blair, Publisher, for 27 years. He has a B.A. from St. Lawrence University and an M.F.A. from UNC-Greensboro. A story he wrote while working on his M.F.A. appeared in the Greensboro Review and was subsequently selected by John Updike for reprinting in the Best American Short Stories series. Since then, he has written First in Flight: The Wright Brothers in North Carolina and Scribblers: Stalking the Authors of Appalachia. He lives in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. "More often, however, Kirk wisely lets his “Voices” do the talking. The result is a pocket volume which should make old Banks hands feel nostalgic and strangers want to go." - Ben Steelman Star News Online

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An Oprah Daily pick for spring 2023 David J. Langum, Sr. Prize in American Historical Fiction Finalist A woman growing up in a family of Russian immigrants in the 1910s seeks a thoroughly American life. Yelena is the first American born to her Old Believer Russian Orthodox parents, who are building a life in a Pennsylvania Appalachian town. This town, in the first decades of the 20th century, is filled with Russian transplants and a new church with a dome. Here, boys quit grade school for the coal mines and girls are married off at fourteen. The young pair up, give birth to more babies than they can feed, and make shaky starts in their new world. However, Yelena craves a different path. Will she find her happy American ending or will a dreaded Russian e

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An eclectic collection by writers who have lived, worked, and played in Key West, Florida. Key West has long been America’s most vibrant writers' colony, tracing its writerly roots to Ernest Hemingway, Tennessee Williams, Robert Frost, John Hersey, Richard Wilbur, James Merrill, and Elizabeth Bishop. More recently, Thomas McGuane, Robert Stone, Judy Blume, Robert Richardson, Ann Beattie, Philip Caputo, Alison Lurie, and Meg Cabot have added their luster to the island’s literary heritage. This collection includes a treasure trove of more than sixty essays, reminiscences, musings, and poems about Key West. It features the town’s best-known writers: Lurie, Blume, Caputo, Cabot, McGuane, Beattie, Shames, Lee Smith, Frank Deford, Phyllis Rose, Glenn Frankel, Joy Williams, Barbara Ehrenreich, Billy Collins, and on and on.

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In this beautiful book of photographs and short essays, some of Appalachia’s best-known writers profile each other and the place they call home. Edited by Bloodroot novelist Amy Greene and her husband Trent Thomson, this book also features Wendell Berry, Lee Smith, Crystal Wilkinson, Ron Rash, Wiley Cash, Silas House, Jason Kyle Howard, Adriana Trigiani, and others. Part photo book, part essay collection, and all praise for the mountains and valleys of the region, this book collects some of the region’s greatest literary treasures for a generation of readers.

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Although legal spirits in the Tar Heel state only go back about ten years, making liquor in North Carolina is not new. Wilkes County, which was once dubbed the “Moonshine Capital of the World,” was the leading producer of illegal liquor for decades. In 1965, Tom Wolfe’s article in Esquire—“The Last American Hero is Junior Johnson. Yes!”—made the area nationally famous. Today descendants of famous moonshiners are now respectable craft distillers carrying on the family tradition—people like Brian Call, the master distiller at Call Family Distillers, who is descended from Reverend Daniel Call, who sold his still seven generations ago to burgeoning entrepreneur Jack Daniels. Brian is the son of the legendary Willie Clay “The Uncatchable” Call, who hung around with Junior Johnson and whose favorite car—a 1961 Chrysler New Yorker fitted with toggle switches that kill the brake lights, is on display at the distillery today. Today, the Calls make a 101-proof sour mash moonshine as well as strawberry, cherry, and apple pie varieties. In Still & Barrel, Trump traces the history of manufacturing moonshine whiskey, gin, vodka, and rum in the state all the way to today’s boom from the artisan movement. The book also serves as a guide so you can visit the almost 50 distilleries that are now in business. The state’s distillers are not just making moonshine. Their wares include rum—from sorghum and molasses—aged red-wheat organic whiskey and vodka infused with the mysterious Tobago pepper. The information about the distillers and their products is surrounded by history and compelling stories about people and their passion. A lifelong newspaper reporter & editor in NC, Trump received an MFA in narrative nonfiction from Goucher College. His thesis, which told the stories and profiles of North Carolina’s craft distilleries, evolved into a regular Huffington Post/i> blog focused on the subject. That blog was the impetus for Still & Barrel.

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De massa call me and tell me, "Woman, I’s pay big money for you, and I’s done dat 'cause I wants you to raise me chillum. I’s put you to live with Rufus for dat purpose. Now, if you doesn’t want whippin’ at de stake, you do what I wants." I thinks ‘bout Massa buyin’ me off de block and savin’ me from bein’ separated from my folks, and ‘bout bein’ whipped at de stake. Dere it am. What am I to do? So asks Rose Williams of Bell County, Texas, whose long-ago forced cohabitation remains as bitter at age 90 as when she was “just a ingnoramus chile” of 16. In all her years after freedom, she never had any desire to marry. Firsthand accounts of female slaves are few. The best-known narratives of slavery are those of Frederick Douglass and other men. Even the photos most people have seen are of male slaves chained and beaten. What we know of the lives of female slaves comes mainly from the fiction of authors like Toni Morrison and movies like Gone With the Wind. Far More Terrible for Women seeks to broaden the discussion by presenting 27 narratives of female ex-slaves. Editor Patrick Minges combed the WPA interviews of the 1930s for those of women, selecting a range of stories that give a taste of the unique challenges, complexities, and cruelties that were the lot of females under the “peculiar institution.” Patrick Minges worked for 17 years for Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. He teaches in Stokes County Schools and at Forsyth Technical Community College in Winston-Salem. He is also the author of Slavery in the Cherokee Nation: The Keetowah Society and the Defining of a People, 1855-1867 and Black Indian Slave Narratives.

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Half a century after the publication of The Lonely Doll, Dare Wright remains a subject of fascination. A strikingly attractive woman-child—a model and fashion photographer who always saw the world through the eyes of a girl—she was the author of nineteen children’s books that are still remembered fondly by a legion of fans. Ocracoke in the Fifties, now in print for the first time, is Dare Wright’s only book for adults. First and foremost, it is a tribute to one of Dare’s favorite places. It is also a time capsule of a unique island culture just past the midpoint of the twentieth century. And surprisingly, it is a testament to the timelessness of Ocracoke—which would please Dare immensely. Ocracoke has seen its share of changes, to be sure, but readers will have no trouble recognizing the durable little island off the North Carolina coast. The Ocracoke Lighthouse, the British Cemetery, the pony herd, the white picket fences, the legend of Blackbeard, the weathered fishermen, the barefoot children—seldom have Ocracoke’s landmarks, legends, and people been portrayed so memorably as by Dare Wright’s camera and pen. Dare Wright died in 2001. Ocracoke in the Fifties will bring a twinge of nostalgia to those who loved her children’s books and introduce her to a new generation of readers. Dare Wright (1914–2001) was born in Canada on December 3, 1914. Her parents' marriage dissolved before Dare turned three, and Dare's father left with her older brother, Blaine. The children were not to reunite until they were in their twenties. Dare grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, and showed an early creative aptitude. Encouraged by her mother, the artist Edith Stevenson Wright, Dare learned to sketch, paint, write, and sew. It took the catalyst of photography for Dare to later combine these talents into her Lonely Doll book series. Moving to New York in her twenties, Dare modeled for major magazines and had small parts in theatrical productions. A stunning beauty, Dare seemed a natural for show business, but she was never comfortable performing in a public venue. Competition, whether with other actresses for roles, or with her mother as a painter, was too distressing. Instead, Dare found her niche as a photographer, first in the fashion field, and then as a children's book author. In 1941, Dare and her brother Blaine met for the first time since they had been separated as children. Blaine was handsome, witty, and everything Dare could have wished for in a sibling. Blaine introduced Dare to his RAF friend, Philip Sandeman. The two became engaged, but the wedding never transpired. The 1957 success of Dare's first book, The Lonely Doll, brought her recognition as both an author and photographer. Illustrated with Dare's haunting black-and-white photographs, the seemingly simple text touched both children and their parents. Almost fifty years later, Dare's nineteen published books continue to delight a new generation of readers.

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Williamsburg, Yorktown, and Jamestown comprise Virginia's historic triangle. Some of the most important chapters of America's history unfolded in these settlements. The region has been the scene of violent confrontations between settlers and the original natives, an emotional struggle for independence, a bitter civil war, and, most recently, a transformation into one of the country's finest examples of historic restoration. Some parapsychologists believe that spirits can be awakened by a sudden flurry of activity. With so much activity occurring throughout the area's history, it is little wonder that there are so many documented sightings of ghosts in this triangle. In this book, Jackie Behrend brings together thirty-seven of the region's most intriguing spirits. From Williamsburg come tales about the Wagon of Death, which can still be heard rolling down Nicholson Street as it brings prisoners to the gallows; the colonial celebrations that continue at the Raleigh Tavern; the residential area where all is quiet except for the ghosts still fighting the Revolutionary War; and the ongoing wedding that brings men form both sides of the Civil War together. From Yorktown come stories about the sounds that emanate from the cave where Lord Cornwallis hid during the town's siege during 1781; the mournful tune that is heard on Surrender Field; and the melancholy feeling that overcomes people retracing the path where slaves were once marched. From Jamestown comes the tale of a deserted lover's angry ghost who still haunts the banks of the James River. From Carter's Grove comes the story of a slave who still searches Old Country Road for his lost family. Just as you can step back in time by visiting the restored settlements of the historic triangle, you can now revisit the past through the stories about the ghostly spirits who haunt Williamsburg, Yorktown, and Jamestown. When Hauntings of Williamsburg, Yorktown, and Jamestown was written, Jackie Eileen Behrend was the owner of J.B. Tours, which offered guided tours of the historic Triangle. Her most popular tour, “The Haunted Williamsburg Tour”, was conducted by lantern light and featured many of the stories in this book. Jackie later moved to Ocean City, Maryland, where she led tours of Ocean City and Berlin. She now lives in Pensacola, Florida.

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In the 1930s, the Federal Writers’ Project undertook a massive effort at gathering the oral testimony of former slaves. Those ex-slaves were in their declining years by the time of the Great Depression, but Elizabeth Sparks, Elige Davison, and others like them nonetheless provided a priceless record of life under the yoke: where slaves lived, how they were treated, what they ate, how they worked, how they adjusted to freedom. Here, Belinda Hurmence presents the interviews of 21 former Virginia slaves. This is a companion volume to Hurmence’s popular collections of North Carolina and South Carolina slave narratives, My Folks Don’t Want Me to Talk About Slavery and Before Freedom, When I Just Can Remember. Belinda Hurmence was born in Oklahoma, raised in Texas, and educated at the University of Texas and Columbia University. She has written several novels for young people, including Tough Tiffany (an ALA Notable Book), A Girl Called Boy (winner of the Parents' Choice Award), Tancy (winner of a Golden Kite Award), and The Nightwalker. She now lives in Raleigh, North Carolina.

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Ironclads and Columbiads recounts the exciting battles and events that shook the coast of North Carolina during America's bloodiest war. Throughout the Civil War, North Carolina's coast was of great strategic importance to the Confederacy. Its well-protected coastline offered a perfect refuge for privateers who sallied forth and captured so many Union merchant vessels in the early days of the war that maritime insurance companies in the North went into a panic, forcing the government to mount an expedition against Cape Hatteras. North Carolina's coastal counties and the state's coastal railroad system were vital to the feeding and resupply of Robert E. Lee's army. And even after the tightening blockade and powerful Federal assaults closed off the ports of Charleston, New Orleans, and Mobile, Wilmington continued to provide a haven for blockade runners. That city eventually became the most strategically important location in the entire Confederacy. To subdue Fort Fisher, which stoutly defended Wilmington, the Union was forced to assemble what was then the largest naval and amphibious landing force in American history. William R. (Bill) Trotter is an essayist, book reviewer, and author of The Civil War in North Carolina and A Frozen Hell, among other books, as well as several short stories and novellas, and has twice been nominated for the Bram Stoker Award. He wrote a monthly column called "The Desktop General" for PC Gamer magazine until 2004. He was the first recipient of the North Carolina English Teachers' Association "Lifetime Achievement Award." He lives in Greensboro, NC.

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A longtime coast watcher tells the story of the beautiful and ever-changing coast of North Carolina—rich in culture, history, and landscape—with words and photographs. This gorgeous, richly illustrated book for visitors and residents alike details the charms and controversies of the “banks” of North Carolina. Hatcher highlights the current wonders of the famous coast, as well as an intriguing history that includes the familiar Outer Banks legendary Wright Brothers flight, the Graveyard of the Atlantic, and the picturesque lighthouses, as well as the lesser known Chitlin’ Circuit beach resort, a 1898 coup d’etat, and a controversial sea bird. Told with an ear for the native language and local lore, with a taste for the water and its riches, and above all, with an eye toward the preservation of a vanishing environment and culture, this will be the go-to book for readers who want an overview of the North Carolina coastal region.

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A young girl grows up in a family uprooted by the terror of an Islamic Revolution, where her culture, her gender, and her education are in peril.For the curious and imaginative Moji, there is no better place to grow up than the lush garden of her grandparents in Tehran. However, as she sits with her sister underneath the grapevines, listening to their grandfather recount the enchanting stories of One Thousand and One Nights, revolution is brewing in her homeland. Soon, the last monarch of Iran will leave the country, and her home and her family will never be the same.From Moji’s house on Sun Street, readers experience the 1979 Iranian revolution through the eyes of a young girl and her family members during a time of concussive political and social change. Moji must endure the harrowing first days of the violent revolution, a fraught passage to the US where there is only hostility from her classmates during the Iranian hostage crisis, her father’s detainment by the Islamic Revolutionary Army, and finally, the massive change in the status of women in post-revolution Iran. Along with these seismic shifts, for Moji, there are also the universal perils of love, sexuality, and adolescence. However, since Moji’s school is centered on political indoctrination, even a young girl’s innocent crush can mean catastrophe. Is Moji able to pull through? Will her family come to her rescue? And just like Scheherazade, will the power of stories help her prevail?

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Winner of the 2023 Pacific Northwest Book Award for poetryWinner of the Wren Poetry Prize selected by Ada Limón, Caitlin Scarano’s collection wrestles with family violence, escaping home, unraveling relationships, and the complexity of sexuality. The Necessity of Wildfire begins, “To not harm / each other is not enough. I want to love you / so much that you have no before.” These poems chase a singular, thorny question: how does where and who we came from shape who and how we love? Judge Ada Limón says the resulting collection is “hungry, clear-eyed, tough, and generous.”Scarano’s imagination is galvanized by the South where she grew up and by the Pacific Northwest where she now resides—floods and wildfires, the Salish Sea and the North Cascades, and the humans and animals whose lives intersect and collide there. In this collection, Scarano reckons with a legacy of violence on both sides of their family, the death of their estranged father, the unraveling of long-term relationships, the complexity of their sexuality, and the decision not to have children. With fierce lyricality, these poems—“stories without monsters, / stories without morals”—resist both redemption and blame, yet call in mercy.

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“Kim Powers's haunting and spellbinding novel Rules for Being Dead reads like an intoxicating blend of the best of Shirley Jackson, Alice Sebold and Fannie Flagg." —STARRED Review, Shelf Awareness It's the late 1960s in McKinney, Texas. At the downtown theater and the local drive-in, movies—James Bond, My Fair Lady, Alfie, and Dr. Zhivago—feed the dreams and obsessions of a ten-year-old Clarke who loves Audrey, Elvis, his family, and the handsome boy in the projector booth. Then Clarke loses his beloved mother, and no one will tell him how she died. No one will tell her either. She is floating above the trees and movie screens of McKinney, trapped between life and death, searching for a glimpse of her final moments on this earth. Clarke must find the shattering truth, which haunts this darkly humorous and incredibly moving novel.

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A documentary-style collection of stories, poems, essays, and interviews by Southeastern Native American women.Upon Her Shoulders is a collection of stories, poems, and prose by Southeastern Native American women whose narratives attest to the hard work and activism required to keep their communities well and safe. This collection highlights Native female voices in the Southeast, a region and its peoples rarely covered in other publications.The editors have deep roots in the scholarship and culture of Native women. Featured prominently is the Lumbee community, where two of the editors (members of the Lumbee tribe themselves) teach at the nearby University of North Carolina at Pembroke, a center for scholarship about the Lumbee people.This volume honors the Native American tradition of passing on knowledge through stories and oral histories. With contributions by both professional and everyday writers, the collection spotlights these societies that have raised girls from an early age to be independent and competent leaders, to access traditional Native spirituality despite religious oppression, and to fight for justice for themselves and other Native people across the nation in the face of legal and societal oppression.

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Across the Blue Ridge Mountains stretches a world both charming and complicated. Jeremy Jones and his wife move into a small house above the creek where his family had settled 200 years prior. He takes a job alongside his former teachers in the local elementary school and sets out on a search to understand how this ancient land has shaped its people—how it shaped him. His search sends him burrowing in the past—hunting buried treasure and POW camps, unearthing Civil War graves and family feuds, exploring gated communities and tourist traps, encountering changed accents and immigrant populations, tracing both Walmart sidewalks and carved-out mountains—and pondering the future. He meshes narrative and myth, geology and genealogy, fiddle tunes and local color in his exploration of the briskly changing and oft-stigmatized world of his native southern Appalachians and particularly the mystical Bearwallow Mountain, a peak suddenly in flux.

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“Kim Powers's haunting and spellbinding novel Rules for Being Dead reads like an intoxicating blend of the best of Shirley Jackson, Alice Sebold and Fannie Flagg." —STARRED Review, Shelf Awareness It's the late 1960s in McKinney, Texas. At the downtown theater and the local drive-in, movies—James Bond, My Fair Lady, Alfie, and Dr. Zhivago—feed the dreams and obsessions of a ten-year-old Clarke who loves Audrey, Elvis, his family, and the handsome boy in the projector booth. Then Clarke loses his beloved mother, and no one will tell him how she died. No one will tell her either. She is floating above the trees and movie screens of McKinney, trapped between life and death, searching for a glimpse of her final moments on this earth. Clarke must find the shattering truth, which haunts this darkly humorous and incredibly moving novel.

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The Gullah culture, though borne of isolation and slavery, thrived on the US East Coast sea islands from pre-Civil War times until today, and nowhere more prominently than on Hilton Head Island, SC. On this small barrier island descendants of the first generations of Gullah people continue to preserve Gullah language, customs, arts, and cuisine. The three authors of Gullah Days: Hilton Head Islanders Before the Bridge 1861-1956 are among those descendants, and in this book, they chronicle the amazing history of their secluded community from the Civil War through the 1950s, when real estate development connected Hilton Head Island to the mainland with a bridge. The history of these Gullah islanders, little celebrated until now, is an amazing American story. Hilton Head Island was one of the first areas liberated by Union troops after Fort Sumter. With plantation owners absent, the society of formerly enslaved Gullah people embarked on the activities of freedom: enlisting in fighting for the Union army; creating the first black-governed community in the South, complete with a police force; and, when formal emancipation arrived, running for office, campaigning, and voting. This book illustrates in vivid detail the story of that vibrant post-Civil War era and the tangled perils of Reconstruction that followed, along with all of the progress and setbacks of African Americans in the South over 150 years via the lives of Gullah Hilton Head Islanders. Authors rely on the historical records and amazing first-person accounts they have gathered from their relatives and other community members to tell this riveting story.

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This richly illustrated book tells the story of the successful collaboration of Jacques and Juliana Royster Busbee in the creation of a remarkable folkcraft enterprise called Jugtown. This improbable venture, founded in a most unlikely setting, has left its indelible mark on a remote Southern community. Fully illustrated with numerous black-and-white and color photographs of the place, the people who made pottery there, and the pottery produced by them, the book tells how the Busbees convinced a few of rural Moore County’s old-time utilitarian potters to make new-fangled wares for them to sell in Juliana’s Greenwich Village tea room and shop. Following New Yorkers’ wild acceptance of their primitive-looking and alluring pottery offerings, the Busbees built their own workshop in rural Moore County and called it Jugtown. Today, nearly one hundred potters make and sell their wares within a few miles of Jugtown—all because a hundred years ago, the Busbees and their Jugtown potters found a new way to make old jugs. Stephen C. Compton is an independent scholar and an avid collector of historic, traditional North Carolina pottery. Steve has written numerous articles and books about the state’s pottery. Widely recognized for his North Carolina pottery expertise, the author is frequently called upon as a lecturer and exhibit consultant and curator. He has served as president of the North Carolina Pottery Center, a museum and educational center located in Seagrove, North Carolina, and is a founding organizer, and former president, of the North Carolina Pottery Collectors’ Guild.

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Nearly two million people visit Gettysburg National Military Park annually, but most of those visitors possess only a rudimentary knowledge of the battle and restrict their travel to the well-established tourist routes. Few know the stories behind the monuments that dot the battlefield, but those back stories are often as fascinating as the story of the battle itself. In their award-winning So You Think You Know Gettysburg?, the Gindlespergers had to make difficult decisions when deciding which of the 200 sites out of the 1,300 battlefield monuments to include. At their frequent book signings in Gettysburg, customers were asking them for a second volume so visitors could learn even more about the monuments throughout the park. In So You Think You Know Gettysburg? Volume Two, the Gindlespergers have expounded on the histories of an additional 200+ park attractions. The area maps and 270+ color photographs make this guide a welcome addition for the park visitor or the armchair traveler. JAMES AND SUZANNE GINDLESPERGER are members of the Friends of Gettysburg Foundation, the Save Historic Antietam Foundation, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, and the Civil War Preservation Trust. Suzanne is a cofounder of Pennwriters, a professional organization for published and aspiring authors. James is the author of three previous Civil War books. The couple lives in Johnstown, Pennsylvania.

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Elizabeth Huntsinger, the author of two popular Low Country ghost-story collections, returns with a third volume of 18 stories. In this collection, she moves beyond local haints and tells about eerie events and unsolved mysteries from the area. Included are stories about a treasure buried along the Sampit River during the Civil War; the pirate Drunken Jack; Tom Yawkey and his beloved Cat Island; the mysterious fire that destroyed Kensington Park; the Pawleys Island Pavilion; George Trenholm and the lost money from the Confederate treasury; and the Sea View Inn on Pawleys Island. A tired, hungry slave woman, upset at being denied her supper one night, places a curse on her plantation that lasts a hundred years. At Magnolia Beach, a mermaid trapped in a bathing house gazes fervently at her storm ball and calls forth a hurricane that sets her free—and kills most members of the family that held her captive. In 1953, the lovely Fiddler’s Green washes up high and dry on the southern end of Pawleys Island. The two brothers who buy her for salvage leave the scene for only thirty minutes—just long enough to find a body hanging from the mast when they return. Actors at Georgetown’s Strand Theatre start to question their sanity one night after a performance. But then Granny Ghostbuster herself arrives to confirm the ghostly presences they feel. Popular folklorist, storyteller, and tour guide Elizabeth Huntsinger is at her best in this collection of nineteen tales from that most mysterious and haunted of places, Georgetown County.

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Since the first edition of A Guide to North Carolina’s Wineries in 2003, the state’s wineries have nearly tripled in number. Tar Heel grapes are grown in the sand of coastal islands, on mountains so steep that tractors slide down them, and everywhere in between. The winegrowers include scientists, farmers, teachers, computer geeks, and “wine bums.” They make or sell their wine at idyllic country estates, in converted gas stations and barns, and in conjunction with their art galleries and restaurants. Among the newcomers is Richard Childress, as committed to winemaking as he is to his NASCAR teams. In just a few years, Childress Vineyards has assumed its place alongside noted establishments like Biltmore Estate Winery, Shelton Vineyards, and Duplin Winery; Vineyard, which the owner spent years building by hand; Thistle Meadow Winery, where the proprietor would rather teach you how to make your own wine than sell you a bottle of his; and Sanctuary Vineyards, whose owners flood 20 to 30 acres of farmland each winter to welcome thousands of snow geese. The 64 winery profiles in this second edition provide wine lists, directions to the wineries, and contact, schedule, and fee information. They also detail the history of each winery and convey some of the passion of the owners and winemakers. Danielle Tarmey was born in the Bahamas and spent her childhood there. When she was eight, her parents moved back to Europe. The daughter of a British father and a French mother, she has lived throughout Europe, including France, England, Italy, and Switzerland. In the United States, she has lived in both California and North Carolina. She earned her master’s degree in education at Salem College. Joseph Mills was born and raised in Indiana and has lived in several states, including Illinois, New Mexico, Utah, and California. After earning a Ph.D. in literature at the University of California, Davis, he joined the faculty of the North Carolina School of the Arts in Winston-Salem. In 2017, he received the University of North Carolina Board of Governors Award for Teaching Excellence. He has published six books of poetry; many of his poems have been featured on Garrison Keillor's A Writer's Almanac.

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Award-winning husband-and-wife folklorists Randy Russell and Janet Barnett have gone to the dogs. Digging deeply through the rich field of Southern folklore, the authors have discovered that a dog's devotion to its human does not always end at the grave. Dogs can be as peculiar as people. Their relationship with humans is complex. In story after story from Southern homes, there is strong evidence that this relationship can extend beyond death. Do dogs return from the other side to comfort and aid their human companions? You bet your buried bones they do. In Ghost Dogs of the South, you'll meet the following: A stray dog that warns Kentucky coal miners of impending disaster; a literary critic of a dog with the gift of speech; a dog-snatching mermaid on the Mississippi River; a Tennessee dog that returns year after year to go trick-or-treating; a pair of Georgia hounds that stumble upon an enchanted woods; a girl whose pain is eased by the ghost of a butterfly dog. Dog ghosts (dogs that have become ghosts), ghost dogs (humans who return as ghosts in the shape of dogs), dogs that see ghosts, dogs that are afraid of ghosts—all make an appearance in these twenty stories that illuminate the shadow side of man's best friend. For several years, folklorists Randy Russell and Janet Barnett have taught a course about Southern folklore at the North Carolina Center for Advancement of Teaching in Cullowhee, North Carolina. Russell is also the author of several mysteries, including Edgar Award nominee Hot Wire.They live in Asheville, North Carolina. "Alternately eerie, funny, tragic and sentimental . . . These tales will undoubtedly delight dog lovers and will not fail to charm even the most dour skeptics of supernatural phenomena." —Publishers Weekly

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In his introduction to Prayin’ to Be Set Free, Andrew Waters likens the personal accounts of former Mississippi slaves to the music of that state’s legendary blues artists. The pain, the modest eloquence, and even the underlying vitality are much the same. What is now Mississippi wasn’t acquired by the United States until 1798, at which time it had fewer than 10,000 inhabitants, excluding Native Americans. By the Civil War, it had over 430,000 slaves and 350,000 whites. More than half the whites were members of slave-owning families. The majority of slaves worked in the cotton fields. Mississippi was known as a slave-buying frontier state, in contrast to the eastern states, which sold slaves westward. Indeed, many of the former slaves in this book speak of coming to Mississippi as children. At the height of the Depression, the out-of-work wordsmiths who comprised the Federal Writers’ Project began interviewing elderly African-Americans about their experiences under slavery. The former slaves were more than 70 years removed from bondage, but the memories of many of them were strikingly clear. The accounts from former Mississippi slaves are considered among the strongest in the entire collection. The 28 narratives presented here are the best of those. Andrew Waters is a writer and former editor. A native North Carolinian, he graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with Honors in Creative Writing and received a graduate degree from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. He is the executive director of the Spartanburg Area Conservancy in Spartanburg, SC.

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Bushwhackers recounts hundreds of incidents that brought the Civil War home to the mountains of the Old North State. Some are violent, some humorous; some are heroic, some shameful. From the opening shots of the war to the vicious acts of vengeance that continued for months and even years after the war ended, Bushwhackers relates the tragic and rarely told tale of how the Civil War was fought among the proud mountain people of North Carolina. William R. (Bill) Trotter is an essayist, book reviewer, and author of The Civil War in North Carolina and A Frozen Hell, among other books, as well as several short stories and novellas, and has twice been nominated for the Bram Stoker Award. He wrote a monthly column called "The Desktop General" for PC Gamer magazine until 2004. He was the first recipient of the North Carolina English Teachers' Association "Lifetime Achievement Award." He lives in Greensboro, NC.

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Former slaves themselves—an important but long-neglected source of information about the institution of slavery in the United States. Who could better describe what slavery was like than the people who experienced it? And describe it they did, in thousands of remarkable interviews sponsored by the Federal Writers’ Project during the 1930s. More than 170 interviews were conducted in North Carolina. Belinda Hurmence pored over each of the North Carolina narratives, compiling and editing 21 of the first-person accounts for this collection. Belinda Hurmence was born in Oklahoma, raised in Texas, and educated at the University of Texas and Columbia University. She has written several novels for young people, including Tough Tiffany (an ALA Notable Book), A Girl Called Boy (winner of the Parents' Choice Award), Tancy (winner of a Golden Kite Award), and The Nightwalker. She has also edited We Lived in a Little Cabin in the Yard and Before Freedom, When I Just Can Remember, companion volumes to this book. She now lives in Raleigh, North Carolina.

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According to archivists at the Library of Congress, South Carolina is richer in folklore than any other state. After traveling almost every back road in several South Carolina counties, Nancy Rhyne wholeheartedly supports the claim. With her tape recorder in hand, the author interviewed dozens of Low Country people, finding that almost every person had a story to tell. She sought out everyone from millionaires to the humblest of coastal people. From their narratives she has fashioned a collection of stories steeped in the history and character of the Low Country. Some of the tales in this collection are humorous, some mysterious. Others are positively eerie. There are stories of killer hurricanes, bizarre voodoo practices and inexplicable happenings. Effortlessly, the author takes us from a gorgeous plantation estate of the 1850s to an overgrown and forbidding cemetery in 1979. And she never fails to keep our attention on this somewhat alien but fascinating world—a world peopled with witch doctors, ghosts, cruel overseers, slaves and world-famous personalities. Nancy Rhyne has taken scattered bits of folklore and oral narratives, combined these with her gift of storytelling, and created a wonderfully engaging book that will entertain readers for years to come.Nancy Rhyne has traveled all over the world and has collected coastal folklore on three continents, Greece, and the British Isles. But her first love is the South Carolina coast, and she has written dozens of articles and books about the area, its history, and its legends. While living in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, she taught a course on South Carolina folklore at Coastal Carolina College in Conway. She now lives in Ft. Myers, Florida.

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Grieving her father’s death, Charlotte McConnell seeks solace at the Outer Banks inn owned by her best friend''s family, but she finds them dealing with their own family drama and soon lands in the center of an unexpected love triangle.Her hotel family welcomes Charlotte with chowder dinners and a cozy room, but her friend Evie has a looming life change of her own, and soon Charlotte seeks other attractions to navigate her grief. Will she, like in some television movie, find her way back through a romance, or are there larger forces at play on Hatteras Island? Heather Frese, winner of the Lee Smith Novel Prize and author of The Baddest Girl on the Planet, sets Charlotte on a beautifully rendered course through human frailty and longing, unrelenting science, and the awesome forces of the Carolina coast.

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A short story collection exploring cultural complexities in China, the Chinese diaspora in America, and the world at large.In a vibrant and illuminating follow-up to her award-winning story collection, Useful Phrases for Immigrants, May-lee Chai’s latest collection Tomorrow in Shanghai explores multicultural complexities through lenses of class, wealth, age, gender, and sexuality—always tracking the nuanced, knotty, and intricate exchanges of interpersonal and institutional power. These stories transport the reader, variously: to rural China, where a city doctor harvests organs to fund a wedding and a future for his family; on a vacation to France, where a white mother and her biracial daughter cannot escape their fraught relationship; inside the unexpected romance of two Chinese-American women living abroad in China; and finally, to a future Chinese colony on Mars, where an aging working-class woman lands a job as a nanny. Chai's stories are essential reading for an increasingly globalized world.

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This book is the first in a series of small, richly illustrated books about North Carolina history through the decades. Originally published as hugely popular serialized articles for Our State magazine, this book chronicles events in North Carolina in the 1940s—a decade which began with the state gearing up for war just as the last formerly enslaved person passed away. The volume is not a textbook overview of the state’s history. Rather, each chapter focuses on a lively and illuminating set of events in the era, such as the music explosion around John Coltrane and Thelonious Monk in the eastern part of the state and Earl Scruggs and traditional string band music in the west, the polio pandemic, shipbuilding in wartime, a harsh era of hurricanes and floods, as well as tobacco as the king of the farming and industrial sectors. The book contains color vintage photographs and illustrations. The author, writer, professor, and musician, Philip Gerard, has published widely, including an iconic novel about the Wilmington coup of 1898, Cape Fear Rising, and is beloved in North Carolina, especially among Our State readers.

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Winner of the Bakwin Award. Final contest judge and award-winning author Carmen Maria Machado (Her Body and Other Parties) described the work as “a wonderful debut; a collection of frank, funny, and heartbreaking stories that delve into the mire of human loneliness.” Poland’s stories usher in a world where mortal fear, the threat of violation, and the body’s looming betrayal drive us to look beyond surface appearances. In these stories, readers will find: a mosquito-borne illness invading a small southern town, forcing its inhabitants to negotiate their lust against the threats of virus-induced paralysis; a pair of newlyweds on their honeymoon at a luxury resort whose automated services quickly turn menacing; a woman whose backyard shed freezes time, forcing her to decide between her need for love and her need for escape. Poland’s stories move among richly imagined landscapes, bringing to life the deep loneliness at the heart of the modern condition and the ephemerality of the bridges we build against the dark.

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In this beautiful book of photographs and short essays, some of Appalachia’s best-known writers profile each other and the place they call home. Edited by Bloodroot novelist Amy Greene and her husband Trent Thomson, this book also features Wendell Berry, Lee Smith, Crystal Wilkinson, Ron Rash, Wiley Cash, Silas House, Jason Kyle Howard, Adriana Trigiani, and others. Part photo book, part essay collection, and all praise for the mountains and valleys of the region, this book collects some of the region’s greatest literary treasures for a generation of readers.

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Over its fifty-year existence, John F. Blair, Publisher, was known for its Southern folklore—its tales of ghosts, goblins, ghouls, spirits, witches, devils, phantoms, haints, boogers, boo-daddies, plat-eyes, demons, apparitions, Doppelgangers, banshees, disappearing hitchhikers, pirate legends, ghost dogs, dog ghosts, dogs who see ghosts . . . In recognition of its golden anniversary, the company published this volume of twenty stories culled from its folklore collections. Readers will likely be impressed at the timeless quality of the tales, some of which have never been out of print since they first appeared in the 1960s. And you may be surprised to learn of their broad appeal, the collections having sold a total of over six hundred thousand copies. Some of these tales are now being enjoyed by their third generation of readers. If you don’t know what a coffin baby is, read “Milk and Candy” by Randy Russell and Janet Barnett. If you’d like to meet a real-life pirate who’d make a better Hollywood character than any swashbuckler yet seen on celluloid, you’ll enjoy “Stede Bonnet” by Nancy Roberts. If there’s a place in your heart for a pair of lifesaving little dogs who’ve scampered on the same South Carolina beach for over a hundred years, try “Pawleys Island Terriers” by Elizabeth Robertson Huntsinger. If you prefer folklore with a historical touch, you can learn about Theodosia Burr Alston in Charles Harry Whedbee’s “Lady in Distress” and about Francis Marion in Daniel W. Barefoot’s “Ghostly Legacy of the Swamp Fox.” The folklorists included here claim stomping grounds from the high peaks and mountain hollows to the flatlands to the swamps to the barrier islands to the briny deep. What they share is a love of their subject and the ability to bring it to life on the page. This anthology was compiled by the staff of John F. Blair, Publisher.

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The compelling story of a talented potter, enslaved by the author''s ancestors, who became one of the singular artists of the nineteenth century.He signed many of his works simply as “Dave” and is known today as Potter David Drake. He made pots and storage jars—everyday items, but because of their beauty and massive size, and because Dave signed and inscribed many with poems, they are valuable works of art, now commanding six figures at auction. Many of Dave''s astounding jars are found now in America''s finest museums. There is no other enslaved artist on record who dared to put his name on his work, a dangerous advertisement of literacy. Fascinated by this man and by his own troubling family history, Leonard Todd moved from Manhattan to Edgefield, South Carolina, the place where his ancestors had established a thriving pottery industry in the early 1800s. Todd studied each of D

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In August 1898, Wilmington, North Carolina, was a mecca for middle-class black citizens. Many of the city's lawyers, businessmen, and other professionals were black, as were all the tradesmen and stevedores. The black community outnumbered the white community by more than two to one. But white civic leaders, many descended from the antebellum aristocracy, did not consider this progress. They looked around and saw working-class white citizens out of jobs. They heard black citizens addressing white neighbors "in the familiar." They hated the fact that local government was run by Republican "Fusionists" sympathetic to the black majority. In this roiling environment, the newspaper office turned into an arsenal, secret societies espousing white supremacy were formed, and isolated acts of violence ensued. The situation was inflamed further by public speeches from both sides. One morning in November, the almost inevitable gunfire began. By the time it was over, a government had fallen, citizens died or dispersed, and Wilmington would never be the same again. Based on actual events, Cape Fear Rising tells a story of one city's racial nightmare—a nightmare that was repeated throughout the South at the turn of the century. Although told as fiction, the core of this novel strikes at the heart of racial strife in America.

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In this third edition of his classic photography/ hiking guide, Adams showcases his own beautiful color photographs. This complete compendium lists 1,000 waterfalls, and Adams specifically highlights more than 300 of the best waterfalls found in North Carolina with full descriptions, comprehensive directions, and four-color photographs. Since the first edition of Kevin Adams’s North Carolina Waterfalls in 1994, this book has sold almost 65,000 copies. In that time, Adams has established a widespread and well-respected reputation as a photographer, naturalist, writer, and teacher. From its comprehensive coverage and detailed trail directions, to its helpful photography tips and beauty ratings, the new North Carolina Waterfalls remains the definitive guide to its subject. In addition to North Carolina Waterfalls, Kevin Adams is the author of seven additional books and their numerous revisions. He has taught nature photography seminars since the early 1990s and leads popular tours in the N.C. mountains to photograph waterfalls. He is the man behind Digital After Dark blog and the free Night Photography News e-newsletter. He lives in the mountains of North Carolina. "Readers will appreciate Adams’ comprehensive coverage, his concise driving and hiking directions, his helpful photography tips, and his emphasis on stewardship of natural resources. North Carolina Waterfalls remains the definitive guide for its subject and a must-have for nature loving natives and visitors."—Internet Brothers: Meanderthals Hiking Blog

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Nick Wolf is a public research specialist for NorthAm Oil Company, but he likes to think of himself as the company storyteller. Nick, who believes in the old-fashioned integrity of the people who run NorthAm, is sent to scout potential oil exploration/drilling sites to assess the political climate. His latest assignment sends him to Hatteras Island, on North Carolina’s Outer Banks. Growing up, Nick’s grandmother used to whisper the name of the island “like a hissing curse that shouldn’t be spoken out loud.” Nick’s grandfather was said to have died on Hatteras during World War II, though he was mysteriously claimed as a fallen soldier by both the American and German armies. As soon as he arrives on the island, Nick is the victim of several suspicious accidents and begins receiving cryptic notes that lead him to surprising revelations about his grandfather. In the course of his research for NorthAm, Nick discovers that four families run everything and everyone is somehow connected. Even Julia Royal, the fascinating and frustrating woman who runs the boarding house where Nick is staying, is the granddaughter of perhaps the most powerful patriarch of the four families—Liam Royal, known as The Founder. This mystery/thriller follows two intriguing storylines. Contemporary politics of the Outer Banks, including the always-controversial question of offshore drilling, interweave with the history of German saboteurs during World War II. The book’s title—The Dark of the Island—is what the old-timers on Hatteras called a moonless night with no stars. It was on these nights that the “mooncussers and wreckers” would raise a false light on the beach luring an unwary ship’s captain to run aground so the locals could row out to the wreck and loot the cargo. In this novel, it’s Nick Wolf’s destiny to discover what is behind the true “dark of the island.” Philip Gerard is the author of five novels and eight books of nonfiction, including Down the Wild Cape Fear: A River Journey Through the Heart of North Carolina and The Patron Saint of Dreams, winner of the 2012 North American Gold Medal in Essay/Creative Nonfiction from The Independent Publisher. "Greed, regret, deceit, and betrayals drive the mystery, but Gerard’s addition of a realistic love story and his literary, often emotionally charged, writing make this a worthwhile read." —Foreword Reviews

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Five thousand years out of the labyrinth, the Minotaur finds himself in the American South, living in a trailer park and working as a line cook at a steakhouse. No longer a devourer of human flesh, the Minotaur is a socially inept, lonely creature with very human needs. But over a two-week period, as his life dissolves into chaos, this broken and alienated immortal awakens to the possibility for happiness and to the capacity for love. Steven Sherrill is a graduate of UNC Charlotte and holds an MFA in poetry from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. The recipient of a NEA Fellowship for Fiction, he has published four novels and one book of poetry. His debut novel, The Minotaur Takes a Cigarette Break, was published in the UK and translated into eight languages. Neil Gaiman selected it as one of six audio books to launch “Neil Gaiman Presents” for Audible.com. A prolific painter and nascent musician, Sherrill is now a professor of English & Integrative Arts at Penn State Altoona. " . . . [W]ry, melancholy, beautiful first novel . . . " —The Guardian "Sherrill's narrative, with its dreamlike pace, shows myth coexisting with reality as naturally as it does in ancient epic." —Publishers Weekly "Wise and ingenious" —The New York Times

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In the introduction to Soul Food Odyssey, Chef Stephanie Tyson describes her early feelings when people assumed her Sweet Potatoes restaurant was a “soul food” establishment. “Soul food was like the boxer George Foreman,” she says. “He would stand there and go toe-to-toe. It wasn’t pretty, but he got the job done, and you’d be on your butt. Southern food, on the other hand, was like Muhammad Ali—a little prettier, and you’d still be on your butt! I wanted Ali. I missed the connection that they were both great fighters. Once I got off my high horse, I wanted to know, from a culinary point of view, how do you make what is essentially castaway food into a ‘cuisine’?” In Soul Food Odyssey, Tyson takes readers along on her journey back to find the food her grandmother called “sumntaeat.” The recipes she shares include how to cook various parts of the pig from “the router to the tooter”; other meat dishes, including everything from stewed turkey wings and pot roast to a Low Country boil; what Tyson calls “stone soul sides,” including crackling cornbread, hoecakes, and, of course, different kinds of greens; soups and stews including oxtail and fish head stew and “Everything in It Vegetable Soup”; and desserts “to sell your soul for.” Along with the recipes come Tyson’s comments, which reflect her biting wit as well as her deep appreciation of the food she has come to embrace. Stephanie L. Tyson is a creative chef who has turned growing up in the South into the soul of her restaurant, Sweet Potatoes. Born in North Carolina, Tyson spent countless hours dreaming of the bright lights of anywhere else. But once she left to travel and cook around the world, she could not believe what a relief it was to come home again. Trained in culinary arts at Baltimore International College, Chef Tyson opened her award-winning restaurant with her partner, Vivián Joiner, in 2003 in the downtown Arts District of Winston-Salem, where they live.

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While working as a reporter and producer for North Carolina’s public television network, Bob Garner took his “love of good food to work” where he created a weekly program devoted to the state’s barbecue culture. That evolved into several programs about traditional cooking. Over the course of his many years with UNC-TV, Garner established himself as a country-cooking connoisseur and viewers came to love his trademark “mmm-mmm” whenever he tasted a dish that met his standards. In Foods that Make You Say Mmm-mmm, Garner discusses such signature North Carolina dishes as Brunswick stew, livermush, calabash-style fish, Moravian chicken pie, persimmon pudding, fish stew, and scuppernong grapes. Each chapter provides historical background, recipes and preparation tips, and listings of the best venues where the readers can sample for themselves. In addition to the classic dishes, sidebars about favorite brand-name food and beverages, including Krispy Kreme donuts, Texas Pete hot sauce, Cheerwine, and Mt. Olive pickles, are interspersed throughout the book. Television personality, restaurant reviewer, speaker, author, pit master, and connoisseur of North Carolina barbecue, Bob Garner is the author of two previous books about barbecue. He has written extensively for Our State magazine, including “Bob Garner Eats,” a 10-part series on traditional Southern foods. He has appeared on the Food Network’s Paula’s Home Cookin’ featuring Paula Deen, and Food Nation with Bobby Flay; the Travel Channel’s Road Trip; and ABC’s Good Morning America. Garner was executive producer and host of the UNC-TV series Carolina Countryside and has been a featured speaker at the annual Big Apple Barbecue Block Party in New York and the Southern Foodway Alliance’s annual symposium in Oxford, Mississippi. He speaks frequently to a wide variety of audiences across North Carolina. In 2011, Garner joined with Empire Properties in Raleigh, North Carolina, to work with Ed Mitchell at The Pit to promote barbecue heritage; plans include traveling across the state to host heritage dinners and pig pickings, accompanied by live bluegrass music. Garner divides his time between Burlington and Raleigh, North Carolina.

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Tennessee is famous for more than just Elvis Presley, Davy Crockett, and Jack Daniel’s. The Volunteer State is also home to enough ghosts, haunts, and spirits to make your skin crawl. Christopher K. Coleman’s Ghosts and Haunts of Tennessee is a new collection of 28 tales of the supernatural. This compilation explores never-before-published legends that span the entire state, from the mysterious mountains of Appalachia to the haunted banks of the Mississippi River. Those familiar with Tennessee’s most famous apparitions will find new thrills in Ghosts and Haunts of Tennessee. Readers may have heard of the Bell Witch, but what of her sister, a vengeful spirit known to the folks on the eastern part of the Highland Rim as the Buckner Witch? What about the phantoms of the Bijou Theatre in Knoxville, a restless troupe of ghosts who perform for unwitting audiences? And what about Hampton, the well-dressed butler of Oakslea Place in Jackson? He often greets visitors, but he’s been dead for years. Of course, this collection wouldn’t be complete without a look at the spirits of legends like Elvis Presley and the ghosts of famous music sites like Opryland and Music Row. Readers will find these stories and more in Ghosts and Haunts of Tennessee. This new compilation of authentic folklore offers a fresh look at things that go bump in the night in the Volunteer State. Christopher K. Coleman has written several books devoted to Southern ghost lore, including Ghosts and Haunts of the Civil War, Dixie Spirits, and Strange Tales of the Dark and Bloody Ground. He received his B.A. in history from St. Anselm College and is a member of the Tennessee Folklore Society. He lives in Hendersonville, Tennessee.

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“One day, I went to the slave market and watched em barter off po’ niggers lak tey was hogs,” said George Lycurgas, as recalled by his son, Edward. “Whole families sold together, and some was split—mother gone to one marster and father and children gone to others. They’d bring a slave out on the platform and open his mouth, pound his chest, make him harden his muscles so the buyer could see what he was gittin’.” The ex-slaves in No Man’s Yoke on My Shoulders speak of a Florida that no longer exists and can barely be imagined today. Now the fourth most populous state in the country, Florida has more than 100 times the people it did in 1860, just before the Civil War. And it was only 40 years removed from Spanish rule. In the 1930s, the Federal Writers’ Project dispatched interviewers to record the recollections of former slaves, many in their 80s or 90s. Only one percent of the 2,000-plus transcripts collected in the Library of Congress told the stories of people who had experienced bondage in Florida. That makes the narratives of former Florida slaves in this volume doubly precious. Readers will get a glimpse into the lives of these rare survivors as they told their stories at the height of the Great Depression, a time many found little better than the slave days. Horace Randall Williams describes himself as “among the last of Alabamians—black or white—who have memories of picking cotton by hand not for a few minutes to see how it felt but because I needed the few dollars I would get for a day’s hard labor under a hot sun.” He was the founder and for many years the director of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Klanwatch Project. He also edited Weren’t No Good Times: Personal Accounts of Slavery in Alabama.

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In 1929, the Social Sciences Department at Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee, began recording the oral histories of former slaves. During the mid-1930s, the Federal Writers’ Project undertook a similar effort, ultimately compiling more than two thousand interviews and ten thousand pages of material in seventeen states. In this volume, thirty-six former slaves living in Tennessee recount what it was like to live under the yoke. Tennessee was not a large slaveholding state compared with others in the South. On the other hand, it was a leader in the abolition movement prior to 1830 and a powder keg of mixed Union and Confederate sympathies at the time of the Civil War. The voices in this volume thus recall the extreme conditions of slavery in the border country. Originally from San Antonio, Andrea Sutcliffe has a journalism degree from the University of Texas at Austin. She was a writer, editor, and publications manager in the Washington, DC, area for twenty years. Her writing and editing career began in 1990 as director of the EEI Press in Alexandria, Virginia. In 1996, Andrea Sutcliffe moved to Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley to devote herself full-time to writing. Andrea’s love of her new home in the mountains of western Virginia, and a desire to learn more about the region’s fascinating history, led to her book, Touring the Shenandoah Valley Backroads.

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One August night, two young law students knocked three times on the huge door to Blackbeard's castle, spoke the secret password, and gained admission to a ceremony steeped in local legend. Judge Charles Harry Whedbee was one of those students, and he waited for over fifty years to tell the story of the night he drank from Blackbeard's Cup—the legendary silver-plated skull of Blackbeard the Pirate. For centuries, the people of eastern North Carolina have spun tales to explain local phenomena and bizarre happenings. For decades, Judge Whedbee collected and preserved that lore. In Blackbeard's Cup and Stories of the Outer Banks, he once again went to the source and returned with sixteen tales that attest to the rich oral tradition of the coastal area. Why does the stone arch over the entrance to Cedar Grove Cemetery in New Bern drip blood on passing mourners? Who carved the name CORA in the gigantic live oak tree on Hatteras Island? What causes the sound of cannons firing off the coast of Vandemere in the summer? How did the rare creature known as the sea angel come to be? Why did an Edenton doctor spend a fortune searching for buried treasure? These are only a few of the mysteries contained in this fifth collection from North Carolina's beloved raconteur. For decades, the folk tales of Charles Harry Whedbee have been available wherever you care to look on the Outer Banks. Their popularity has transcended Whedbee's loyal readership among North Carolinians and visitors from the Northeast and the Midwest. Charles Harry Whedbee was an elected judge in his native Greenville, North Carolina, for thirty-plus years, but his favorite place was the Outer Banks, Nags Head in particular. Whedbee was the author of five folklore collections. He died in 1990.For decades, the folk tales of Charles Harry Whedbee have been available wherever you care to look on the Outer Banks. Their popularity has transcended Whedbee's loyal readership among North Carolinians and visitors from the Northeast and the Midwest.

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During the 1930s, the Federal Writers’ Project undertook the task of locating former slaves and recording their oral histories. The more than ten thousand pages of interviews with over two thousand former slaves were filed in the Library of Congress, where they were known to scholars and historians but few others. From this storehouse of information, Belinda Hurmence has chosen twenty-seven narratives from the twelve hundred typewritten pages of interviews with 284 former South Carolina slaves. The result is a moving, eloquent, and often surprising firsthand account of the last years of slavery and first years of freedom. The former slaves describe the clothes they wore, the food they ate, the houses they lived in, the work they did, and the treatment they received. They give their impressions of Yankee soldiers, the Klan, their masters, and their newfound freedom. Belinda Hurmence was born in Oklahoma, raised in Texas, and educated at the University of Texas and Columbia University. She has written several novels for young people, including Tough Tiffany (an ALA Notable Book), A Girl Called Boy (winner of the Parents' Choice Award), and The Nightwalker. She has also edited My Folks Don't Want Me to Talk About Slavery and We Lived in a Little Cabin in the Yard, companion volumes to this book. She now lives in Raleigh, NC.

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Whedbee's collections of legends and folklore have become regional classics. The continuing popularity of these books stems from the author's intimate knowledge of the places, people, and events of which he writes. He gathers the mysteries, tales, legends, and lore that have been handed down for generations on the North Carolina coast and recounts them with a sensitivity for tradition that makes him a master at what he does. For decades, the folk tales of Charles Harry Whedbee have been available wherever you care to look on the Outer Banks. Their popularity has transcended Whedbee's loyal readership among North Carolinians and visitors from the Northeast and the Midwest. Charles Harry Whedbee was an elected judge in his native Greenville, North Carolina, for thirty-plus years, but his favorite place was the Outer Banks, Nags Head in particular. Whedbee was the author of five folklore collections. He died in 1990.

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