It enclosed us in its laceries as we watched the moon spill across the Atlantic like wine from an overturned glass. With the light all around us, we felt secret in that moon-infused water like pearls forming in the soft tissues of oysters.

Writing has never been that simple for me.

I’ve never had anyone’s approval, so I’ve learned to live without it.

William Ferris has long reigned as the unimpeachable source of the entire southern experience. His work on southern folklore and the composition of the Encyclopedia of Southern Culture have made him both legendary and necessary. His book, The Storied South , is a love song to the South Bill helped illuminate. It's a crowning achievement of his own storied career.

Music could ache and hurt, that beautiful music was a place a suffering man could hide.

South Carolina is not a state; it is a cult.

I've always believed that dreams were both the love letters and the hate mail of the subconscious.