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"Amy Blackmarr returns to her native Georgia as a "refugee," fleeing a bleak Kansas winter, the trauma of graduate school, and a "loss of identity, confidence, boyfriend and best dog and pride." Now White Pine Cabin, a hut barely big enough to turn around in, becomes the setting for Blackmarr's searing self-examination as she tells the stories that have led her so far inward and works out a trail back toward a happier connection with herself, the land, her God, and the people in her world. With an irony that keeps her prose from sinking into sentiment, Blackmarr writes of the dishonesty in a lost relationship, flunking her graduate exams, the inborn racism she was surprised to discover, and ...
Circling Faith is a collection of essays by southern women that encompasses spirituality and the experience of winding through the religiously charged environment of the American South. Mary Karr, in “Facing Altars,” describes how the consolation she found in poetry directed her to a similar solace in prayer. In “Chiaroscuro: Shimmer and Shadow,” Susan Cushman recounts how her dissatisfaction with a Presbyterian upbringing led her to hold her own worship services at home and eventually to join the Eastern Orthodox Church. “Magic” by Amy Blackmarr depicts a religious practice that occurs wholly outside of any formal setting—she recognizes places, such as a fishing shack in south...
From the memories of a childhood marked by extreme poverty, mental illness, and restrictive fundamentalist Christian rules, Janisse Ray crafted a “heartfelt and refreshing” (New York Times) memoir that has inspired thousands to embrace their beginnings, no matter how humble, and to fight for the places they love. This new edition updates and contextualizes the story for a new generation and a wider audience desperately searching for stories of empowerment and hope. Ray grew up in a junkyard along U.S. Highway 1, hidden from Florida-bound travelers by hulks of old cars. In language at once colloquial, elegiac, and informative, Ray redeems her home and her people, while also cataloging the source of her childhood hope: the Edenic longleaf pine forests, where orchids grow amid wiregrass at the feet of widely spaced, lofty trees. Today, the forests exist in fragments, cherished and threatened, and the South of her youth is gradually being overtaken by golf courses and suburban development. A contemporary classic, Ecology of a Cracker Childhood is a clarion call to protect the cultures and ecologies of every childhood.
A lyrical collection of essays that eloquently depict a city woman's sojourn in the pine woods of GeorgiaUnfulfilled by city life, Amy Blackmarr, then in her mid-thirties, sold her thriving paralegal business and returned to her Georgia roots. She passed five years in her grandfather's remote "old scarecrow of a fishing cabin" beside a South Georgia pond, where she immersed herself in her surroundings and in her writing. With warmth, charm, and humor, Blackmarr mixes vignettes from her past with reflections on the present, describing the surprising generosity of strangers; life without hot water; her two dogs, one a "lush" and the other a cave builder; the occasional visit from an alligator; her days as a two-stepping cowgirl; pheasant hunting with her third ex-husband; and the life and death of her grandmother.In the tradition of Kathleen Norris's The Cloister Walk and Annie Dillard's Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, Going to Ground is Blackmarr's ode to romance, to the beauty of nature, to thejoys and fears of solitary life, and to one woman's discovery of herself.
Award-winning author investigates paranormal phenomena in a Georgia gold-mining town.
We hear about heaven and the supernatural far more often on late-night TV than in church; indeed, many Christians never hear eternity mentioned seriously from the pulpit. This book of short, personal essays gathers the hopes and reflections of writers from theology, fiction, and poetry. The authors include Rick Moody, Nora Gallagher, Robert Orsi, Barbara Brown Taylor, Phyllis Tickle, Alan Jones, Maggie Robbins, Barbara Crafton, Cynthia Bourgeault and Susan Wheeler. These writings, which mix autobiography, story-telling, and theological reflection, are so poignant and wide-ranging that we can all find ourselves in them and start telling our own stories about heaven.
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An honest and compelling memoir, Girl in Need of a Tourniquetis Merri Lisa Johnsons account of her borderline personality disorder and how it has affected her life and relationships. Johnson describes the feeling of ''bleeding out'' - unable to tell where she stopped and where her partner began. A self-confessed ''psycho girlfriend,'' she was influenced by many emotional factors from her past. She recalls her path through a dysfunctional, destructive relationship, while recounting the experiences that brought her to her breaking point. In recognizing her struggle with borderline personality disorder, Johnson is ultimately able to seek help, embarking on a soul-searching healing process. It's a path that is painful, difficult, and at times heart-wrenching, but ultimately makes her more able to love and coexist in healthy relationships.
C.S. Lewis likened hard times to "God's megaphone," a season when the Creator's ways are made clear and proven merciful. Mustard Seeds author Lynn Coulter agrees, writing here across fifteen essays about the natural graces and "God signs" that emerged during a three-year period of hardship and sustain her faith today. From personal events (her parents' deaths, a job loss) to universal cripplers (stress, worry), Coulter's fresh anecdotes unearth the little daily markers of God's love and care while staying rooted in Scripture. Her writings fuse the observational strength of Anne Lamott's nonfiction with the warm delivery of Sue Monk Kidd's devotional books and are sure to be passed around as ...
“The best Appalachian novelist of his generation.” —Ron Rash, author of Serena and The Cove "The Dark Corner is one of the most riveting and beautifully written novels that I have ever read. Trouble drives the story, as it does in all great fiction, but grace, that feeling of mercy that all men hunger for, is the ultimate subject, and that's just part of the reason that Mark Powell is one of America's most brilliant writers." —Donald Ray Pollock, author of The Devil All the Time and Knockemstiff “Mark Powell’s third novel powerfully tackles the ongoing curses of drugs, real estate development, veterans’ plights, and other regional cultural banes that plague an Appalachia still ...