The South and The Fury: Why Southern Literature Matters Now

The South is often characterized as a geography resistant to change. Even in the 21st century, the likelihood of Southern states skewing politically conservative has led the South to be construed as stagnant, unprogressive, or even hostile to social change. What is often elided in these kinds of narratives is the fact that there have always been Southern writers willing to speak out, even if at great personal cost, to the injustices in their communities and the South at large — be they environmental issues, LGBTQ rights, or racial inequality. Women writers such as Janisse Ray, Anne Moody, Mab Segrest, Lillian Smith, and Jesmyn Ward are examples of Southern writers whose deep love for the soil beneath their feet encouraged them not just to write, but to write in order to better the world around them. Far from only reinforcing Southern male stereotypes, literary representations of manhood found in the works of such authors as Larry Brown, Tony Earley, Barry Hannah, and Bryan Washington, amongst others, reveal characters who rebuke the “single story” of conservative manhood and are actually open to emotional intimacy, progress, and change.

Having met and grown as writers in the South, Melanie Ritzenhaler and Jenn Alandy Trahan will discuss Southern writers both historical and contemporary, and encourage dialogue concerning what we can celebrate and learn about regionalist literature, no matter where we call home.

Melanie Ritzenhaler is an Assistant Professor of Practice at Doane University, a liberal arts institution in Crete, Nebraska. Melanie received her MFA at McNeese State University and her PhD at Ohio University. Her fiction and nonfiction have been published in Guernica, Gettysburg Review, Cimarron Review, Ninth Letter, Colorado Review, and elsewhere.

Jenn Alandy Trahan earned her BA from the University of California, Irvine, and her MA and MFA from McNeese State University in Lake Charles, Louisiana. A Wallace Stegner Fellowship in Fiction brought Jenn to Stanford University, where she continues to teach as a Jones Lecturer. Jenn’s work has also been supported by the Community of Writers, Straw Dog Writers Guild & The Mount, Cultivate, The Elizabeth George Foundation, Gullkistan, and the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts. Her fiction can be found in Permafrost, Blue Mesa Review, Harper’s, One Story, and The Best American Short Stories.