It’s true, Writer’s Digest went and asked me to write a little something. And here it is. Enjoy.

Southern fiction.

It encompasses the lyrical and beautiful, as well as the vulgar and grotesque. It is both comic and tragic in the same breath. Seeding the South’s traditions into each new generation, the canon of Southern literature continues to grow: brambled and wild, like some ever-abundant garden.

This garden should have died o...