Southern Memoirs

This Is Not Real Life is a memoir about the total, unfiltered chaos behind the scenes of my time in media. From an evangelical upbringing and a steady diet of Fox News to going viral and playing my first part in media disinformation, to meeting with terrorists, neo-Nazis, intelligence agents, and political crime rings.

Winner of the 2025 Lambda Literary Award for Transgender Nonfiction and the 2025 GLCA New Writers Award By a prize-winning, young Black trans writer of outsized talent, a fierce and disciplined memoir about queerness, masculinity, and race. Even as it shines light on the beauty and toxicity...

“Southern Discomfort is a raw, thought-provoking examination of privilege, racism, sexism, the masks we wear to conform to society’s expectations, and the journey toward authentic identity.” —Read with Us: Caste, An Oprah’s Book Club Discussion Guide For fans of beloved memoirs like...

Mistress Vixen is intelligent, sophisticated, and charming, with a wicked sense of humor, which She loves to indulge at Her slaves expense. Naturally Dominant, She exudes sensuality and eroticism that you sense as soon as you enter Her presence: spellbound, you'll leave the everyday world behind you're in Hers now. A soft smile to lull you into a false sense of security, then the single word Strip to remind you of your place naked at Her feet and you'll hurry to obey.

Meredith Mason Brown traces Daniel Boone's life from his Pennsylvania childhood to his experiences in the militia and his rise as an unexcelled woodsman, explorer, and backcountry leader. In the process, we meet the authentic Boone: he didn't wear coonskin caps; he read and wrote better than many frontiersmen; he was not the first to settle Kentucky; he took no pleasure in killing Indians. At once a loner and a leader, a Quaker who became a skilled frontier fighter, Boone is a study in contradictions.

When you are born in the South you are different. And you always will be.

In December 2000, Derwin Brown, the newly elected sheriff of DeKalb County, Georgia, was ambushed and murdered in his own driveway just days before taking office. He had run on reform—promising to clean up corruption and restore integrity to the sheriff’s department—defeating the powerful incumbent in a bitter runoff. The case fell to J.Tom Morgan, then the county’s elected District Attorney.

In Down South, writer Bruce Ansley goes on a journey back to his beloved South Island of New Zealand in search of what makes it unique. From Curio Bay to Golden Bay, in Down South writer Bruce Ansley sets off on a vast expedition across the South Island, Te Waipounamu, visiting the places and...

Ellen Ann Fentress is a veteran writer for the New York Times, the Washington Post, and The Atlantic. She’s also a seasoned southern woman, specifically a white Mississippi one. “Women do a lot for free, no matter the era, no matter the location,” she observes in The Steps We Take: A Memoir of Southern Reckoning. As a good southern woman, Fentress felt a calling to help others.

Leaving Aberdeen is the story of a young Southern girl's awakening during a turbulent time of racial reckoning, from reading torn textbooks in a one-room schoolhouse to attending a premier HBCU, from professional modeling to motherhood, and from accepting her "place" to supporting her husband's membership as a Black Panther.

The life story of my beloved 98-year-old grandfather, Lee Hayles. We are blessed to still have him here with us today. Tag along as he grows up during the 1920s, joins the Civilian Conservation Corps and the Navy for World War II, and his eventual settling in the Midwest to open his business in the highly competitive printing industry.

From living in the country and jamming with her cousins to the latest Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam album, to being forced by a determined great-aunt to play the role of a disgruntled Peter Cottontail in the annual church Easter program, to experiencing the worst relationships in the history of mankind, before being reunited with her one true love (life was good!), join this Southern girl as she shares her 32 years of growing up in Georgia.

From white trash mill village girl to Senior Cinderella. In Alabama Blue, Toni K. Pacini shares her tumultuous journey. A girl raised up like an invasive weed in an Alabama cotton mill village where illiteracy, bigotry, religious fanaticism, and abuse were as commonplace as fried chicken on Sunday. From pillar to post, and coast to coast, she sought a dauntingly illusive refuge.

In January of 1950, Mary Church Terrell, an 86-year-old charter member of the NAACP, headed into Thompson’s Restaurant, just a few blocks from the White House, and requested to be served. She and her companions were informed by the manager that they could not eat in his establishment, because they were “colored.” Terrell, a former suffragette and one of the country’s first college-educated African-American women, took the matter to court. Three years later, the Supreme Court vindicated her outrage: District of Columbia v. John R. Thompson Co., Inc. was decided in 1953.

A Southern Woman's Story (1879) is a chronicle of Phoebe Pember's experiences as matron of the Confederate Chimborazo Hospital from November 1862 until the fall of Richmond in April 1865. It is considered an important source on Confederate history, and is also a valuable work for scholars of women's history and the medical and social history of the Civil War.

Barbers and beauticians are expertly positioned to have a hand on the pulse of their communities—and Barnard the Barber is no exception. Learning from his village as the barber, the author shares those lessons learned on how we can liberate the rural South by building anti-racist communities everywhere.

Through anecdotal humor, Jim Lindsey shares tales of growing up in the South; life in Hollywood as an actor, model, and advertising executive; falling in and out of love; raising children; and living in the turbulent times we face. In poems and jokes, quotes and stories, Jim paints a picture of a long life lived within the wide boundaries of love and loss, joy and sorrow. He shares his story so that listeners are taken back to a simpler era in our nation.

A collection of previously published columns describing life in Florida for North Carolinians.

Come, sip a glass of sweet tea and sit for a spell with Ronda on the porch swing as she tells you stories of happiness and heartache, friends and family, and a faith that’s strong enough to handle anything life throws your way. As Ronda shares, Southerners don’t just talk about God, they...