I’m a sucker for all things South. I admit that, and can do so in print or in pixels. A cover of some barn or plantation house or cotton field piques my interest. A location referenced, whether it be Jackson or Vicksburg or Nashville or Charleston makes me reach. “Y’all” is a soothing tang of a sweet glass of Kool-Aid that welcomes me to flip to the back cover.

I am interested, nay, vested, in stories about my adopted homeland. The unique people, places, and things. The coming to terms with a region that has, from its beginnings, have signaled low intellect, great food, thoughtful and kind people, and mosquitoes the size of small birds. A region replete with its risks and joys, consequences and politics, sauces and crops.

I am hungry for stories of all kinds. The coming of age story. The retirement story. The big city story, of Memphis and N’Awlins and Little Rock and Richmond. The small town, with red dirt and unpaved lanes and the general store run by an affable old guy or the city girl come back to run it after a time being the black sheep of the family. I need that in my eyeballs.

And, eventually, maybe I’ll write my own story. Of the city boy who visited a small corner of his mother’s Mississippi, and all of the family and Walmart’s and Jitney Jungles and Piggly Wigglys that were involved.