#southern author

[free-air-for-fish]

[23] Chapter 16 Review Syndicate: Love and Hot Chicken

I love when I get the opportunity to review queer literature, especially literature from southern authors, as there is still a persistent stigma against the south, and queer authors writing queer fiction and nonfiction face a double blink situation in that they are exponentially overlooked, so I’m always very excited to be able to share some queer southern lit. with others. Love and Hot Chicken,…

[bachiles]

Kinfolk by Sean Dietrich

Oh how often have I sung the praises of Sean Dietrich aka Sean of the South on my blog? Too many to tag, that is for sure. I was introduced to Sean’s writing years ago by my best friend, Ann, and over the years I have followed his career and enjoyed his daily posts as well as his books. Guess what? Come November fans will be able to get his latest novel, Kinfolk, from their local bookstores and…

[12thbiologist]

annihilation is soooo good because the biologist is aware that she is an unreliable narrator and also hates it. she WANTS to be completely impartial and objective and just observe everything without influencing any of it. but she cant so instead she omits her name from the entire book to the point where it's almost absurd and completely intentional and splits her journal into "objective" chapters detailing her expedition and "subjective" chapters detailing her memories about her husband. ill never be over you biologist

[thebarefootcajunpetiteshistoires]

Miss Juanita Pouissine, Potato Queen

It is high noon on the old homestead where Miss Juanita Poussine lives. She’s out moving some of her gardens today; working in her root garden. Fall season was upon the South Louisiana Cajun Prairie; always a mild winter. Miss Juanita knew that she could potentially be harvesting potatoes in January. Her root storage was dwindling, and she wanted to replenish it with the next crop.

Miss Juanita was known for her potatoes, now Louisiana is not a big potato growing area, but she just had a knack with potatoes: red potatoes, purple potatoes and yams were her prize winning heroes.

Each year since 1922, Miss Juanita had won first prize at the Tri Parish Fair. First prize won her a trip to Idaho one year to see ‘them’ Idaho potatoes. She wondered why people didn’t visit her potato garden since she had won first prize for forty years. Let’s see, it’s 1962, by my calculation that’s forty years of winning.

“Mais, Chère, c’est leur perte!” (It’s their loss!) Je suis un gagnant! (I’m a winner!) exclaimed Miss Juanita Poussine.

Now I think we can all agree that Miss Juanita Poussine had no problems with self-confidence!

Miss Juanita had never married. In ‘them’ days women who never married were referred to as ‘Old Maids’ no disrespect single girls, today that is not a politically correct term, used by this author only to make a point about the times.

Today it’s actually more in-vogue to be a single woman, independent and self-reliant. Y’all go, single women. Okay, back to our story!

Some said that Ms. Juanita Poussine was getting a little too cocky about being the Potato Queen. She stood on the podium while hundreds watched her crowned Potato Queen 1962. With her head held high she was given her chance to walk the runway with all of the other Queens at the Tri Parish Fair.

Now in fairness to Miss Juanita she worked hard in her potato garden; it was a labor of love that she took very seriously. Multiple times a day she was in that garden praying over it, weeding it, smelling it, fertilizing it, watering it, draining it if there was too much rain, and God forbid a frost, she built fires all around the garden to keep the potatoes underneath the ground warm and cozy. Her prized potatoes were her children.

We all need something to get up for in the morning, and for Miss Juanita Poussine, it was her potatoes. She calculated everything on a large calendar and kept anecdotal notes similar to notes a teacher would keep on pupils. She knew those potatoes like she knew the back of her hand. A Potato Queen, Ms. Juanita Poussine was, and she worked for that title.

One of the rooms in her house, the parlor, had all of her banners and scepters with the year that she was awarded the title, Potato Queen. She had them plastered to her wall and had made a special glass cabinet to hold her scepters and crowns. Each banner and scepter needed to be returned the next year, but Ms Juanita had refused. She simply didn’t return them; the judges and fair officials knew that they needed to provide Ms. Juanita with a new one of each. And there was no compromise on her part. That Miss Juanita stood firm when her mind was made up.

Just as she was sure she was going to win Potato Queen again, someone came up with a new type of potato. It was a man named Mr. Hosea Debrilliard. He had grown potatoes all his life, too; and he was a pretty serious potato guy. His thing was creating a hybrid, a beautiful potato that was a cross between the delicious orange yam and the purple smaller potato. The cross created a beautiful warm, reddish brown color, an elongated potato like the yam, but smaller. It was his secret to unseat Miss Juanita Poussine. No one knew that he was planning to do this. Now of course, Mr. Hosea Debrilliard certainly didn’t do this out of malice; just as Miss Juanita loved potatoes, so did he. And he loved to experiment with his potatoes. Miss Juanita was more conservative. She believed it was a sin to cross vegetables, more of a purist she was.

Word got out that Mr. Hosea would be entering a new potato at the Tri Parish Fair next year, 1963. Miss Juanita was not alarmed or worried. She knew she had nothing to fear. Who would have the audacity to unseat her after forty years? Little did she know she had met her match in Mr. Hosea. And little did she know he had a secret weapon. And little did she know that people were rather tired of Miss Juanita’s, ‘I got this snobbish’ attitude after forty years. Now we can’t blame people for their attitude, because Miss Juanita really did have an attitude and air of superiority about her reign as Potato Queen.

Fast forward to the1963 Tri Parish Fair on the South Louisiana Cajun Prairie. This year in particular the word was out that Miss Juanita might just have met her match in Mr. Hosea, a gentle soul with a mild mannered personality. Pretty much a loner and unmarried as Miss Juanita. About the same age as Miss Juanita, about sixty-two.

People began to think what a lovely couple this bachelor and single woman would make, and they both have a keen interest in potatoes. People in South are like that, they love to matchmake; hmmm, maybe because married couples are so happy, or maybe because married couples are so unhappy. Either way, Southerners enjoy a romance blooming right before their eyes, and if there isn’t one budding they might just interfere, for the good of the couple, let me make that distinction.

And on the day of the potato judging, the judges struggled with making a decision.

They said, “Comment pouvons-nous renverser une reine des pommes de terre” (How can we unseat the Potato Queen?)

The deliberation went on for two whole days. The whole tri parish region was riddled with suspense. Each day while waiting for a decision the Tri Parish Fair population increased by as much as a thousand visitors. Attendance records were broken and money was being made. Newspapers and TV local news carried the controversial decision. No one wanted to take sides, however; therefore the judges asked for three extra days to deliberate. And on the third day, a Sunday morning, papers and TV news programs announced that the committee had made a decision. It would be announced that evening on the Queen’s Platform. People began arriving at the Tri Parish Fairgrounds around noon milling around and enjoying the excitement.

Miss Juanita had cloistered herself at home vowed not to arrive until about half an hour before the announcement would be made. Mr. Hosea decided to come a bit earlier to enjoy the festivities. Really, he had much less to lose, he wasn’t the reigning Potato Queen for the past forty years. The loss would be more devastating for Miss Juanita Poussine.

Both Miss Juanita and Mr. Hosea had asked the officials to have time alone with the judges, unbeknownst to either of the two of them.

Around five minutes before the big announcement, both Mr. Hosea and Miss Juanita sat in two wrought iron rusty old chairs. These were the seats of honor; of course the Queen’s chair was deliberately much more plush, after all it had to be fit for a Queen. The main judge came to the podium and you could hear a pin drop. She told the guests that there had been a surprise decision. The two main contenders, Hosea and Juanita, had both come in secret to relinquish their roles in the competition. The audience became even quieter, not knowing what to expect. And then the judge giving the report said, “This year we have both a Potato Queen and a Potato King.

And with that announcement the crowd hooped and hollered so much that you could hear the celebration in the next state. The two winners embraced, held hands and took a victory walk with scepters in hands and crowns on their heads. Of course most of the attendees set their sites on Miss Juanita Poussine becoming Mrs. Hosea Debrilliard.

Remember Southerners are romantics at heart?!

And that my friends and readers is how they do it on the South Louisiana Cajun Prairie where everyone is a winner.

[deermouth]

Scavengers Reign (Joseph Bennett, Charles Huettner, 2023) // The Southern Reach Trilogy, from Authority and Acceptance (Jeff VanderMeer, 2014)

[pstelwitchcraft]

You wanna know what's crazy? Now knowing that Laura and Marisha didn't plan to be romantic this campaign at all, it is INSANE that everything went so perfectly, thematically, exactly the way it did.

The series of events from the rock breaking, Dusk showing up RIGHT as it was happening, to them making up just so Otohan could show up and kill Laudna not a DAY later literally because she wanted to get on Imogen's nerves ("Is she your favorite?"). And then Imogen obliterating Delilah with her own fucking hands for Laudna. Getting the circlet. Laudna holding Imogen on the ship they were about to crash having that Tether Talk^tm just before they were separated ONCE AGAIN.

Just the entire escalation that led to them meeting in Jrusar that day and Imogen blurting out "Can I kiss you?" in the mfing BREAD ISLE because she couldn't hold back her feelings is BONKERS.

Even down to Imogen saying she "thought dates were supposed to have sparks" after their date with pretty and telling Laudna she "has the biggest spark she's ever seen" a long ass time later in Bassuras.

The evolution of their feelings for each other, the tension that was building on that table every time they talked to each other. The fact that it all happened serendipitously with absolutely no previous plan and it went just the way it did? Immaculate. Showstopping. Absolutely astounding. If Marisha, Matt and Laura had sat down and planned this whole thing from the beginning it still couldn't have gone more perfectly.

[leavendotblog]

spring - andrew wyeth. what is growing and what is dying?

[wishgrub]

terroir 🌱🐁

[greatlakesrebel]

I finished the southern reach trilogy can you tell

[petitedeath]

I started this drawing and it was fine in just ink. And the it was fine when I water colored it but then I accidentally ruined it. And just kept going. Oh well. I combined it with some experiments I did with paint pouring and peeling.

I finished reading authority last week and just loved the concept of the mouse/plant in the drawer and the concept of terroir. I'll have to try drawing it again.

[free-air-for-fish]

[17] Chapter 16 Review Syndicate: Those We Thought We Knew

A previous boss of mine was obsessed with David Joy’s books, but I had yet to read any of this work. Those We Thought We Knew was a great entry into his work. Joy focuses a lot on addressing racial turmoil in the South, so if you like detective work, murder mysteries, or eerie small town drama in the South, then you’ll likely enjoy this book. Cover of the book Those We Thought We Knew. As I…

[bachiles]

You Are My Sunshine - Sean Dietrich

You Are My Sunshine – Sean Dietrich

If you have followed me here and on social media you know that I have a few favorite authors and Sean Dietrich tops the list. I was not able to get an early release of his latest book, You Are My Sunshine, but listened to the audiobook the day it was released. The hubby even requested that we listen to it as we drive to the beach so I think I might have gotten him hooked as well. If you have…

[12thbiologist]

what can you do when your five senses are not enough? ... what occurs after revelation and paralysis?

- jeff vandermeer, annihilation

[erythriina]

my dealer: got some straight gas this strain is called ‘the southern reach’ youll be zonked out of your gourd beyond what any man can bear, but whether it decays under the earth or above on green fields, or out to sea or in the very air, all shall come to revelation, and to revel, in the knowledge of the strangling fruit

me: yeah whatever. I don’t feel shit

5 minutes later: dude I swear I just saw a rift in reality in the tunnel tower

my buddy Control, pacing: The Voice is lying to us

[halothanic]

the biologist, 20XX

"the biologist’s hair had been long and dark brown, almost black (…) she had dark, thick eyebrows, green eyes, a slight, slightly off-center nose (broken once, falling on rocks), and high cheekbones that spoke to the strong asian heritage on one side of her family. her chapped lips were surprisingly full for such a thin frown (…) even sitting down at the table, she somehow projected a sense of being physically strong, with a ridge of thick muscle where her neck met her shoulders."

there is no official art of the biologist from the southern reach trilogy, so i quick whipped up my own for the character inspiration meme i did! above is her physical description from the second book.

to me, she is one of the best written characters in any media i've consumed. one of my all-time favorites, undoubtedly. the southern reach trilogy is one of the best things i've ever read too, i encourage it for anyone that hasn't. it's probably my biggest inspiration, as well!

background is eric nyquist's inside cover artwork, just stunning. i thought it fit the symmetry theme of her portrait.

[southern-reach]

boss makes a dollar i make a dime that’s why i put dead mice and plants in desk cabinets on company time