About the Contributors

James H. Clinton is executive director of the Southern Growth Policies Board. He has been an author of five Reports on the Future of the South, including The New Architecture of Rural Prosperity and The Mercedes and the Magnolia. His book of verse, What Is Fair, was published by Louisiana State University Press.

William R. Ferris is the Joel R. Williamson Distinguished Professor of History, senior associate director of the Center for the Study of the American South, and adjunct professor of folklore at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. A former chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities, he has made numerous documentary films and has authored over 100 publications in the fields of folklore, history, literature, and photography.

Elizabeth Gritter is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her master's thesis explored civil rights and politics in Memphis, Tennessee. A graduate of American University in Washington D.C., she works as a research assistant for the Southern Oral History Program.

Mary Hussmann received her MFA from the University of Iowa and teaches at St. Lawrence University. She has published essays, poetry, book reviews, and interviews in anthologies and journals including American Nature Writing 2001, The Iowa Review, The Yalobusha Review, The Kenyon Review, and Brevity.

Perry Kasprzak is a graduate of the University of New Orleans, and was a columnist and feature writer for the Times-Picayune until Katrina hit. Stranded seven days with his wife and stepdaughter in their flooded Mid-City apartment, he covered the story in a severely battered kayak made leak-proof with packaging tape. He has just finished a book about the experience.

Lucas Marcoplos is a recent graduate of Vanderbilt University. He currently lives in Nashville, Tennessee, where he works as a family assistance case manager for the Tennessee Department of Human Services.

Sarah Wilkerson-Freeman is associate professor of history at Arkansas State University. She has published numerous chapters and articles on gender and women's history in the South, including in Mississippi Women: Their Histories, Their Lives. She is currently planning a book on photographer Jack Robinson.