Books

By: Mark Daniel Compton (Author), Erin Chandler (Editor), Brooke Lee (Designer), 2023, Paperback

Like the holiday staple, this novel is topped with cherries, filled with nuts and fruit, and doused with a healthy dose of spirits. The ghost from Christmas past in this tale is no Marley; he is an incubus freed from hell and chained to a fruitcake that is continually regifted, causing much havoc in the small Southern town of Dixon. This demon, accidentally released, is on the run from an old domestic housekeeper/voodoo root doctor, the eccentric family she nurtured and raised, and a slew of angelic forces, all determined to send him back to hell from whence he came.

In the 1990s, a South Carolina town built its first botanical garden. For a small town, that was big news. For a small Southern town, that it was led by two gay men and a feminist was astounding.

Their lives and plant choices raised eyebrows as the Garden became a national showcase for new styles, even earning recognition on HGTV's "Secrets of Great Gardens."

One of the young men, Jenks Farmer, had previously left the conservative South but returned with a mission: to challenge traditional notions of garden beauty, which clung to formality and associated certain plants with stigmas of poverty and race.

These Garden Disruptors challenged genteel social norms of race, homophobia, and sexism while shoveling compost, searching for plants, and planting flowers. The crew of creative misfits built a garden that attracts millions of people today.

In this novel-like true story, Jenks Farmer's soulful voice shares the story of a mismatched crew of real, dirty-handed gardeners who not only planted the garden but set its mission.

Through these characters, Jenks also recounts the history of elitist horticulture, of sexual and racial discrimination in gardens, and of how social norms changed drastically in the South during the period of garden buildings.

By:  Marni Brown, Baker A. Rogers, & Martha Caldwell, 2022, Paperback

Create a more gender-inclusive climate in your classroom and school. This important book breaks down issues of gender and sexuality at the individual, interactional, and institutional level and shows how you can cultivate an atmosphere of acceptance and belonging for all students.　

You’ll learn key concepts and terms educators need to know to support students, how gender and sexuality identities develop and influence mental health, why we should take an intersectional approach with students, and the importance of creating psychological safety in the classroom. You’ll also gain practical suggestions on how to disrupt unconscious bias, represent diverse voices, counteract microaggressions, use gender-neutral language and preferred pronouns, address gender bullying, provide safe zones, and craft inclusive school statements. Each chapter contains examples, anecdotes from teachers and students, best practices, and resources to help you along the way.

Appropriate for educators of all grade levels, this book’s clear, helpful advice will help you ensure that your students feel visible, affirmed, and safe, so they can thrive in school and beyond.

Evelyn Berry's debut poetry collection, Grief Slut, is an examination of the queer lineage of pleasure, grief, and resilience in the American South.Berry offers a portrait of a girl living through boyhood and grappling with the violence of nostalgia in poems that blend high art, archival slivers, and Taco Bell. This collection invites us into a landscape home to sloppy kissers, swamp suitors, scrappy "limbwrecked boys," and drag queens drenched in glitter sweat, where "each day is trespass" and queer youth fight to "hear one another breathe just a little while longer."

The morning that I read Mahmoud Khalil had been arrested, I wrote a short meditation on a postcard. I had written postcard poems before, drawn to the brevity and the link between the poem and the image. I asked him what he needed for the journey. I dropped the card in the mail to a friend. But the stories kept coming. My morning meditations, contained by the small message space of the postcard, began to take into their ambit not just the deportation regime but the administration’s broader attacks on history, truth, law, democratic norms—and in the face of such fears, my own mortality. What kind of disaster did I think was coming?

I asked him what he needed

for the journey. He said,

Write down what you saw.

Maybe, someday, the world

will want to know.

Along with poems, the book has postcard reproductions in full color.

By Baker A. Rogers, 2021, Paperback

While drag subcultures have gained mainstream media attention in recent years, the main focus has been on female impersonators. Equally lively, however, is the community of drag kings: cis women, trans men, and non-binary people who perform exaggerated masculine personas onstage under such names as Adonis Black, Papi Chulo, and Oliver Clothesoff.  
 
King of Hearts shows how drag king performers are thriving in an unlikely location: Southern Bible Belt states like Tennessee, Georgia, and South Carolina. Based on observations and interviews with sixty Southern drag kings, this study reveals how they are challenging the region’s gender norms while creating a unique community with its own distinctive Southern flair. Reflecting the region’s racial diversity, it profiles not only white drag kings, but also those who are African American, multiracial, and Hispanic. 
 
Queer scholar Baker A. Rogers—who has also performed as drag king Macon Love—takes you on an insider’s tour of Southern drag king culture, exploring its history, the communal bonds that unite it, and the controversies that have divided it. King of Hearts offers a groundbreaking look at a subculture that presents a subversion of gender norms while also providing a vital lifeline for non-gender-conforming Southerners.

In "Love and Other Forms of Heartbreak," poet Tayler Simon invites readers on a raw and poignant journey through the tangled landscapes of the heart. Through evocative verses that resonate with vulnerability and honesty, Simon explores the myriad shades of love and loss, from the ache of unrequited longing to the bittersweet embrace of self-discovery. Each poem serves as a cathartic exploration of the emotional terrain we traverse in pursuit of love, offering solace and solidarity to those who have known heartache.

"Love and Other Forms of Heartbreak" is a heartfelt and achingly beautiful collection that celebrates the enduring power of love, even in the face of heartbreak. It is a testament to the beauty of embracing our most vulnerable selves.

By Nicki Pappas, 2024, Paperback

signed, poetry

Step into the intersectional world of a queer, interracial family navigating love, identity, and community in rural North Carolina. Mosaic Hearts is more than a poetry collection; it's an invitation for folx on the margins to feel seen, heard, and understood.

These verses explore the pain, complexity, and joy of being a mosaic family in a mostly monotone world. Periodic reflective pauses invite you to consider your own experiences, sparking healing, growth, and a deeper sense of connectedness. This collection calls you to feel, to connect, and to believe in the transformative power of love, inspiring social change while building community.

By: Willie Lee Kind III, 2023, Paperback

As a young, Black, queer person in a small town in the South where everyone knows everyone, Orders of Service is a coming-of-age exploration of the everyday fever of fleeting relationships, while capturing the romantic, psychic quotidian of the Bible Belt. This commentary on gospel traditionalism is armed with dreams of helping to reshape lived realities where being your truest self could be shunned or ostracized in deeply religious communities. It ruminates on this Deep South narrative by exploring how the age of social media has created a rich underground counterculture that offsets the surface rituals of grief and shame. The poems illuminate lineages of performance and fellowship for queer descendants of the last Black folks out of the Carolina cotton fields, and features Anansi-like speakers (Anansi is a trickster spider featured in West African and Caribbean folklore) while delving into old-school sensibilities and advice. This gospel-fugue bends language in the backwoods of faith and desire. Pulling figures from the stories of childhood―Icarus, a flying boy wanting to escape; Asterion the Minotaur―the wandering son of someone absent; Medusa, a wronged person portrayed as a mankiller; Cerberus, a beastly guardian intent on being a “good” boy― these poems are punky, preachy, prissy, and pink-collar, and all help create the fever-dream that is Orders of Service.

By Nicki Pappas, 2022, Paperback

signed, poetry 

From the historic streets of Charleston, where flooding tides now rise with alarming frequency, Pulitzer Prize finalist Tony Bartelme takes readers deep into the heart of the climate crisis. With the eye of an investigative reporter and the soul of a storyteller, Bartelme makes the invisible visible-whether it's carbon dioxide drifting from a tailpipe, disappearing plankton beneath the waves, or the subtle collapse of ecosystems we barely understand.

Rising Waters is a story of science, wonder, and urgency. Traveling from the Lowcountry to Greenland, the Sahara, and beyond, Bartelme introduces readers to NASA scientists, Inuit shamans, coral whisperers, and chemical detectives, all working to decode the planet's fever. And he always brings it back home-to the marshes, reefs, and communities of the American Southeast, where the battle between water and land is no longer possible to ignore.

This book is a call to see clearly, think deeply, and act meaningfully-before more of our world slips beneath the surface.

By: Casey Lown (Author), 2021, Paperback

Emily Fillan is the proud owner of a prickly mouth and a mountain of emotional baggage.

In one year, she has suffered a nervous breakdown, dropped out of college, and acquired a mean case of writer’s block. To top it all off, she is burying her father—the police officer who offered more sympathy to the criminals he arrested than to his own daughter. In tying up her father’s loose ends, Emily encounters the wounded individuals who made up his universe.

Among them is Joe Corner, the worst, most irresponsible, best babysitter Emily ever had. Spending time with Joe, Emily realizes her vision of her father may have been obscured by the grey-tinted glasses she donned as a child after her parents’ contentious divorce. Emily’s reconnection with Joe develops into a warmth she quickly labels her soul’s salvation.

But Joe is no savior. He is already in a committed relationship with the white powder that helps him forget his crooked roots and the sinister figure emerging from his past.

Emily’s father always insisted no one is beyond redemption. How long can one man’s loving influence survive after death, and is it too late to inherit her father’s compassion to save those she loves? Only one thing is certain: If Emily is to heal her wounds and Joe’s, she must learn that saving and helping aren’t necessarily the same thing.

SAFELIGHT is character-driven contemporary fiction. It is a gritty, coming-of-age story of wounded protagonists, blending new adult angst with irreverent, dark humor.

Content warnings can be found on the author's website www.caseylown.com

A coming-of-age dramedy with a clever, sardonic edge, Casey Lown’s SAFELIGHT is a potent, superbly written novel that pushes boundaries, and maybe even a button or three, all the while showing that the road-less-traveled is sometimes the only way forward. (4.8/5 stars)
~ IndieReader (full review https://indiereader.com/book_review/safelight/)

Unlock the secrets of successful Southern gardening with this comprehensive guide that tackles the unique challenges of growing in the South's distinctive climate. From mastering the region's infamous humidity to understanding soil types and proper drainage, this detailed handbook covers everything you need to know. The book spans 16 information-packed chapters addressing crucial topics like plant selection, soil health, watering techniques, pest management, and garden design. Perfect for newcomers to Southern gardening or experienced gardeners seeking to refine their skills, it provides practical knowledge gained from real-world experience. Learn essential techniques for pruning, propagation, and creating beautiful shade gardens, while discovering how to work with the South's six distinct growing seasons. Whether you're tending a small balcony garden or managing a sprawling country plot, this thorough guide offers tested wisdom to help you cultivate a thriving Southern garden.

Edited by: Tom Mack and Andrew Geyer, 2024, Paperback

In his introduction to this Southern poetry anthology, Tom Mack says, "There is no exact English equivalent for the Spanish word querencia, but some translate the term to mean 'the place where a person is their most authentic self.' For the fifty contemporary poets in this unique volume, that place is the American South, from the East Coast to the Ozarks." Andrew Geyer adds that the poet-contributors to this volume "have each put their own unique spin on what makes the South to be what it is at this moment, in the year 2024, almost a quarter of the way through the new century unfolding around us...in a variety of forms and on an amazing array of subjects--all the corners of this continually evolving region including its flora, fauna, cultural idiosyncrasies, dark history, and distinctive cuisines."