From Beaufort to Boone and a dozen places in between, Carolina Writers at Home is a rich collection of true stories showcasing the houses where some of the most notable contemporary Southern authors--including Jill McCorkle, Nikky Finney, Allan Gurganus, Clyde Edgerton, and Michael Parker have forged their writing lives. The homes in these essays range from the classic bungalow and mid-century modern ranch house to wilder locales: a church, a trailer, and a sparsely-inhabited barrier island.

Delightful tales of hunting and fishing, family, friends, dogs, and precious time well spent. Nationally recognized and award-winning writer Jim Mize captures the true essence of sport and living life to the fullest in this collection of stories about his outdoor escapades. In tales spanning more than five decades, Mize invites readers into carefree days hiking through the Colorado Rockies with a fly rod and leisurely casting poppers to bludgill on small southern ponds. Cold days shivering in a duck blind or deer hunting trips lost in fog all make for fine memories.

Venture off the beaten path to forgotten roads, where a hidden South Carolina exists. Time-travel and dead-end at a ferry that leads to wild islands. Cross a rusting steel truss bridge into a scene from the 1930s. Behold an old gristmill and imagine its creaking, clashing gears grinding corn. See an old gas pump wreathed in honeysuckle. Drive through a ghost town and wonder why it died. When's the last time you saw a country store's cured hams hanging from wires? How about a vintage Bull Durham tobacco ad on old brick?

On the fifth anniversary of his wife's death, birthday balloons snag Slater Watts 15th-story office window, freed when a killer knifes a mother in an alley. Watts can't save her, and a woman dies in his arms yet again on July 2. Watts, a journalist, who's sick of Atlanta, crime, his job, and memories of his wife's death, sees the balloons as a wake-up call and decides to quit his job. But his editor gives him the most exciting assignment he's ever had, literally changing his life.