Features the voices of twenty-six of the most luminous artists and thinkers in the American cultural firmament, from Eudora Welty and Alice Walker to William Eggleston and C. Vann Woodward. Drawn from one-on-one interviews, the book reveals how storytelling is viscerally tied to southern identity and how the work of these southern or southern-inspired creators has shaped the way Americans think and talk about the South.