Loblolly Press: In Conversation

About the book

From award-winning author Spencer K.M. Brown, SLOW FIRE is a collection of Southern stories about people living at the edge of belief—religious, familial, and personal—where grace is rare, suffering is ordinary, and endurance becomes a quiet form of love.

Set among frozen hollers, decaying motels, burning fields, and small towns hungry for spectacle, these stories follow mothers and fathers, sons and daughters, preachers and murderers, and outcasts and wanderers confronting loss, disability, violence, and moral uncertainty. A woman watches her past collapse beneath the blade of a bulldozer. A self-anointed preacher nails himself to a cross, convinced the end has arrived, only to discover that the world, indifferent and unrepentant, continues without him.

Fire and snow recur as elemental forces throughout the collection, promising cleansing, preservation, or erasure. Animals move through the margins as witnesses. Children observe with unsettling clarity. Families and communities strain under inherited pressure, while would-be heroes falter. What endures are small acts of care, practiced without audience or reward.

Written in a clean and lyrical voice, SLOW FIRE examines faith without romance, suffering without self-pity, and love as something practiced daily rather than proclaimed. Redemption here is not spectacle. It arrives through survival, attention, and the stubborn refusal to abandon grace—or one another.

Published by Loblolly Press, August 6, 2026.

Get the book: https://www.loblollypress.com/products/slow-fire

About the guests

Spencer K.M. Brown is an award-winning novelist and poet from the foothills of North Carolina. A finalist for the CMA National Book Awards and winner of the Penelope Niven Award and the Flying South Fiction Prize, he’s been nominated five times for the Pushcart Prize. He’s the author of the novels Move Over Mountain and Hold Fast and the poetry chapbook Cicada Rex. His Southern Gothic novel Recommendations for a Departing Soul is forthcoming from Regal House. He lives with his wife and three sons. Slow Fire is his first collection of stories.

Bradley Sides is the author of the short story collections Those Fantastic Lives and Crocodile Tears Didn’t Cause the Flood, a 2024 Book of the Year finalist at Southern Literary Review. His fiction has been featured on LeVar Burton Reads, and his reviews, interviews, and essays appear at Chapter 16, Electric Literature, The Millions, The Rumpus, and Southern Review of Books, where he hosts “The Southern Summer Book Club.” His novella The Volcano Keeper is forthcoming from Regal House. He lives in Madison, Alabama, and teaches writing and literature at Calhoun Community College.

Listen & subscribe

Loblolly Press: In Conversation is a literary podcast rooted in the American South and reaching beyond. We are not here to define Southern literature. We are here to expand what it can hold.

Watch the video version on the Southern Review of Books YouTube channel:

Recorded for The Southern Summer Book Club at Southern Review of Books. Hosted by Bradley Sides. Guest: Spencer K.M. Brown.

Loblolly Press: In Conversation

Nathan Spainhour Reads the Signs

The South Carolina BBQ Project — the perfect summer book

Andrew sits down with Nathan Spainhour, designer and author of The South Carolina BBQ Project: Signs, Symbols, & Stories from the Pit, and Lib Ramos, founder of its publisher, Good Printed Things. We drop straight into the hardest part of the story — Maurice's Piggie Park, the Confederate flag, and the racism woven through South Carolina barbecue — and follow it all the way to a quieter, more beautiful place: whole hog's Black roots, hand-poured maps, and the food memories a single plate can hold. It's our pick for the perfect summer book.

In this episode

We start in the difficult part on purpose, because you can't tell the truth about South Carolina barbecue without it. From there the conversation opens outward — whole hog as a Black Southern tradition, barbecue as the clearest lens on a state's history, and Nathan's idea of "graphic design as a mode of inquiry." We get into the source map he made by pouring real sauce onto newsprint, why a book this analog had to stay in print, the open-source ethos of the pit, hash and the I-26 hash corridor, and the difference between a polished logo and a ramshackle stand the locals swear by.

Topics covered

Diving straight into the hard part: Maurice's Piggie Park, the Confederate flag, and reckoning with the racism in barbecue's history

Whole hog and its Black Southern roots — from Rodney Scott back to its origins in Hemingway, SC

Why food is the clearest lens on a state's history — "we can't just pretend that's not the case"

"Graphic design as a mode of inquiry": why this is a design study, not a straight history book

The source map: South Carolina's four official sauces, hand-poured in real sauce on newsprint (process photo and all)

Print, analog, and no shortcuts — a record of barbecue artifacts in a craft that still takes 14–16 hours and can't be faked

"Open source" barbecue, by way of Ryan Fertel's The One True Barbecue: what pitmasters gladly share, and the one thing they never will

Hash, the "thick meat gravy," the I-26 hash corridor, and the vanished hash houses

Polished branding vs. the ramshackle roadside stand — the upstate pig-logo "map," and which one the locals trust

Polished places as an entry point that leads back to the roots; Nicholas Carr on culture renewed by every generation

Change, preservation, and a vanished small-town "coffee shop" — ending on food memory and why everybody has a barbecue story

About the book

The South Carolina BBQ Project: Signs, Symbols, & Stories from the Pit is part history, part design study, and part love letter to the state's most treasured foodway. Through hand-painted signs, roadside architecture, styrofoam plates, and everyday ephemera, Spainhour reveals how design shapes our sense of authenticity, memory, and tradition. Published by Good Printed Things. 5.5" x 8", ISBN 9798992199352. As featured on Walter Edgar's Journal, GDUSA, and Vessel Magazine.

Get the book: https://goodprintedthings.com/products/the-south-carolina-bbq-project

About the guests

Nathan Spainhour is a designer, artist, and lifelong enthusiast of visual culture from Anderson, SC. He's the founder of Spainhour Creative Work, a studio focused on brand and creative strategy, and the author of The South Carolina BBQ Project, which began as his MFA thesis in graphic design. He has led creative work for national brands and taught graphic design as a full-time college professor, and he keeps circling the intersection of design, storytelling, and place — with a soft spot for architecture, maps, and analog practices like screenprinting. He lives in South Carolina with his wife, Jess, and two very persuasive small dogs.

Lib Ramos is the designer and founder of Good Printed Things, a small press in Greenville, SC, that publishes meaningful, small-batch books celebrating connection and creativity. Founded in 2021, the press grew out of her love for art, reading, and good design, and her belief that good things belong in print. She's also a co-founder of the Indie Craft Parade. She lives in Greenville with her husband and two kids.

Mentioned in this episode

The One True Barbecue by Ryan Fertel — the pitmaster road-trip book that inspired this project's case-study approach

Robert Moss, barbecue historian — source of the definitive "thick meat gravy" description of hash

Nicholas Carr, on culture needing to be renewed and honored by every generation

Places along the way: Maurice's Piggie Park, Rodney Scott's BBQ (Charleston & Hemingway, SC), Lewis Barbecue (Charleston), Henry's Smokehouse (Greenville), Buxton Hall / Elliott Moss (Asheville), Easton Barbecue Co., Bear's Barbecue (Asheville), Midway Barbecue, and Sticky Fingers

Listen & subscribe

Loblolly Press: In Conversation is a literary podcast rooted in the American South and reaching beyond. We are not here to define Southern literature. We are here to expand what it can hold.

Listen on Substack: https://loblollypress.substack.com/podcast

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/loblolly-press-in-conversation/id1788898683 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/101gUujLtBEpA74fND2jDH

Hosted by Andrew Mack. Guests: Nathan Spainhour and Lib Ramos.

Loblolly Press In Conversation: Willie Carver Jr.

In this episode, we’re joined by Willie Carver Jr. for a conversation about writing and teaching in a time when it feels like everything is on fire. We talk about joy, not as a performance or a slogan, but as something you protect day to day. Willie shares how he steps out of guilt, how he shifts toward love and concern for other people, and how writing keeps him in community.

We also talk about what happened when Willie was named Kentucky Teacher of the Year, and how quickly that public recognition turned into backlash in the middle of the culture war. He walks us through what it meant to defend queer, Black, and brown students in a system that often would rather quiet the conflict than do the right thing, and why he ultimately left the classroom.

From there, we get into language and place, and what it means to protect Appalachian English instead of sanding it down. Willie talks about the pressure to “correct” a Southern accent, why “you might could” says something standard English can’t, and how voice becomes an ethical choice on the page. He also introduces Tore All to Pieces, explains the phrase, and reads from the book, including “Sometimes I miss these hills” and a section centered on Keisha.

In this episode, we talk aboutJoy without performance, and refusing guiltWriting as community and conversationKentucky Teacher of the Year, backlash, and leaving the classroomAdvocacy as calling out and trusting people to respondAppalachian English, accents, and what gets erased“You might could” and the humility built into the languageTore All to Pieces, and why the stories needed the voice they haveReading: “Sometimes I miss these hills” and a Keisha excerpt

Books mentionedGay Poems for Red Stateshttps://bookshop.org/a/113834/9780813198125

Tore All to Pieceshttps://bookshop.org/a/113834/9781985903708

Article mentioned“I’m Afraid to Return to the Classroom”: A Gay Teacher of the Year Speaks Out (Education Week)https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/im-afraid-to-return-to-the-classroom-a-gay-teacher-of-the-year-speaks-out/2022/05

Episode Credits

Hosted by: Andrew Mack

Guest: Willie Carver Jr.

Produced by: Loblolly Press

Music: Summersteen by Tony Sopiano

In this episode of Loblolly Press: In Conversation, guest host Matt Sawyer sits down with Emma Ensley, author of The Computer Room (Loblolly Press, September 4, 2025). Recorded live at City Lights Bookstore, this conversation traces how Ensley’s work captures what it meant to grow up both online and in small-town Georgia.

“I think a lot about the two places I grew up — the South, and the internet. Those shaped me as much as anything else.”— Emma Ensley

Ensley reads from her stories “Babyland” and “The Computer Room,” offering glimpses into Cabbage Patch “births,” Sims pregnancies, and the surreal, tender ways childhood imagination collides with digital spaces as we grow into adulthood. The discussion digs into how the book balances humor with heartbreak, the design instincts that shaped her prose, and the role of religion, nostalgia, and constraint in short story craft.

What we cover in this conversation

* Why Ensley set her stories in the hybrid space of Georgia and the early internet

* Using the Wayback Machine to research message boards, Seventh Heaven fanfiction, and 2000s pop culture

* The challenge (and joy) of structuring short stories like contained plays or designs

* How religion, mission trips, and youth group culture surface in subtle but powerful ways

* The role of nurture and unreal “births” across the collection

* What she misses most about growing up online, from LimeWire misfires to Napster paranoia

* Creating the Computer Room audio zine with musician Lorg, mixing Sims sound effects, dial-up tones, and Ensley’s narration

Ensley also talks about the darker side of internet culture in stories like “You’re Such an Inspiration” and “Cave Girl,” which trace the beginnings of influencer culture, online body image, and retreat from digital life.

Fall at Loblolly Press

* The Computer Room by Emma Ensley — debuted Sept 4, reviewed in Hood of Bone Review. Dispatch from Launch Party in Zona Motel:

And this thoughtful essay on Emma’s audiozine for The Computer Room:

* Proud Roads by Kelly Riedesel — poems on the one-year anniversary of Hurricane Helene, out Sept 27

* A Field Guide to North American Trees by Garrett Ashley (with Good Printed Things) — chapbook out Oct 7; full-length Habitats coming April 2026

💌 Support the podcast and Loblolly Press at loblollypress.substack.com. Paid subscribers get early access to books, discounts, and behind-the-scenes updates.

Episode Credits

🎤 Hosted by: Andrew Mack & Matt Sawyer

👥 Guest: Emma Ensley

🎧 Produced by: Loblolly Press

🎶 Music: Summersteen by Tony Sopiano

In this episode of Loblolly Press In Conversation, Andrew Mack is joined by Garrett Ashley, author of A Field Guide to North American Trees (Good Printed Things x Loblolly Press, October 7, 2025), and Lib Ramos, founder of Good Printed Things.

We talk about how Field Guide began as the center section of Ashley’s full-length manuscript Habitats (forthcoming from Loblolly Press in April 2026) before taking on a life of its own as this debut chapbook. Each poem adopts the form of a field guide entry — from leaves and bark to cones and range — but shifts unexpectedly into memoir, weaving trees together with moments from Ashley’s childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood.

What we cover in this conversation:

* Why poetry can feel more vulnerable than prose — and why Ashley leans into that discomfort

* How Habitats grew out of years of writing between fiction projects, and the creative arc that gave it shape

* The origins of Field Guide as a “palate cleanser” that became its own fully realized book

* The craft challenge of structuring poems around “habitat” and “range” as hinge points

* How teaching, community, and even AI are shaping the writing and publishing landscape

Ashley also reads “Loblolly Pine,” a poem from the chapbook, and talks about the joy and difficulty of writing poems that hold both ecological detail and personal memory.

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📚 Fall at Loblolly Press:

* The Computer Room by Emma Ensley (stories) debuted September 4, and has already been reviewed in Hood of Bone Review. Read it here.

* Proud Roads by Kelly Riedesel (poems on the one-year anniversary of Hurricane Helene) available for pre-order now. Release on September 27, 2025).

* A Field Guide to North American Trees by Garrett Ashley (poetry chapbook in partnership with Good Printed Things) out October 7, 2025 —pre-order now from Good Printed Things.

Plus: we’re celebrating the one-year anniversary of If Lost by Clint Bowman with a fall tour —Clint is out on the road now. Follow along: @clintbowman on Instagram.

💌 Support the podcast and Loblolly Press at loblollypress.substack.com. Paid subscribers hear episodes like this first and get early access to books, discounts, and behind-the-scenes updates.

Episode Credits

🎤 Hosted by: Andrew Mack & Lib Ramos👥 Guests: Garrett Ashley🎧 Produced by: Loblolly Press🎶 Music: Summersteen by Tony Sopiano

In this episode of Loblolly Press In Conversation, we sit down with Lib Ramos, founder of Good Printed Things, an indie press based in Greenville, South Carolina. This episode dives into what it means to build something meaningful from scratch—how chapbooks, collaboration, and Southern design sensibilities can create space for voices that deserve permanence in print.

We talk about the creative and logistical challenges of running a press, how collaboration between small publishers can push us to do better work, and the story behind our first joint project: A Field Guide to North American Trees by Garrett Ashley, a poetry chapbook that serves as a companion to his forthcoming full-length collection Habitats.

We also explore what makes a chapbook special, the ripple effect of beautiful small things, and how poetry rooted in place opens us up to new ways of seeing and feeling. Whether you’re a writer, a reader, or someone dreaming of starting your own press, this one’s for you.

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📚 September and October are big months for Loblolly Press!We’ve got three new titles in the world:

* The Computer Room by Emma Ensley (short stories, Asheville-based debut)

* Proud Roads by Kelly Riedesel (poems on the one year anniversary of Hurricane Helene)

* A Field Guide to North American Trees by Garrett Ashley (poetry chapbook in partnership with Good Printed Things)

Plus: It’s the one-year anniversary of If Lost by Clint Bowman, and we’re kicking off a fall tour to celebrate. Stay tuned for upcoming event announcements.

💌 Support the podcast and Loblolly Press at loblollypress.substack.com. Paid subscribers hear episodes like this first and get early access to books, discounts, and behind-the-scenes updates.

Episode Credits:

🎤 Hosted by: Andrew Mack

👥 Guest: Lib Ramos

🎧 Produced by: Loblolly Press

🎶 Music: Summersteen by Tony Sopiano

In this episode, we sit down with Robert Busby, author of Bodock, his debut short story collection from Hub City Press. Set in a fictionalized version of his Mississippi hometown, Bodock explores the sharp edges of Southern identity—grappling with masculinity, family, faith, and the quiet violence of becoming.

Busby talks with us about what it means to be a “Southern writer,” how growing up in a dry county shaped his sense of taboo and rebellion, and how religion and myth structure the emotional worlds of his characters. We talk Larry Brown and Brad Watson, rural trauma, class anxiety, and the generational patterns we pass down—intentionally or not.

He also reads from “Fraternal Twins,” a standout story from Bodock that blends dark humor, biblical allusion, and moral reckoning in a scene both devastating and unforgettable.

At the heart of this conversation is a quiet argument: that the South isn’t just a region—it’s a microcosm. And to understand its contradictions is to begin to understand something deeper about American identity.

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Bodock is out now from Hub City Press. We also included Bodock on our Southern Summer Reads List for 2025.

💌 Support the podcast and Loblolly Press at loblollypress.substack.com.

Episode Credits:

🎤 Hosted by: Andrew Mack

📖 Guest: Robert Busby

🎧 Produced by: Loblolly Press

🎶 Intro/Outro Music: Rooftop Sunsets by Alexey Anisimov via Tune Tank

In this special episode of Loblolly Press: In Conversation, Greenville, South Carolina poet laureate Glenis Redmond joins us to reflect on family, chronic illness, and the spiritual labor of carrying memory across generations, against the backdrop of her upcoming release, Over Yonder: A Poet’s Exploration of South Carolina’s State Parks, Pt II from Good Printed Things in Greenville, SC. Glenis speaks candidly about how being a poet is part historian and archivist—one who listens deeply to what has come before and preserves it in language with an eye forward to the future. Poets are, what she calls, “uncanny people.”

We talk about the challenges of writing poetry and about nature as a Black poet in the South, and how certain landscapes, especially trees, hold both beauty and historical weight. Inspired in part by Glenis’s essay, What Hangs on Trees from Orion Magazine, this conversation explores the tension between belonging and harm, and how Glenis navigates the world as someone who “flies with words.”

She shares how systemic oppression imprints on the body, why she started the first slam poetry group in Greenville, SC, and what it means to build roads of access for others—especially for those who have long been othered. We also honor the lineage of Black women thinkers and writers Glenis walks beside: Lucille Clifton, bell hooks, Crystal Wilkinson, Jacki Shelton Green, and Nikki Finney among them.

This episode ends with Glenis’s stunning reading of a poem from Over Yonder called “What to Do in Water” - a poetic recounting of when three black teenagers drowned in one of the state’s segregated state parks in 1954.

Pre-Order Over Yonder Now (Good Printed Things, July 2025)

Glenis Redmond’s Previous Work

The Song of Everything

What My Hand Say

The Listening Skin

The Three Harriets and Others

In this episode, Andrew Mack sits down with Dr. Stacey Hettes, a professor of biology and neuroscience at Wofford College and the author of Dispatches from the Couch: A Neuroscientist and Her Therapist Conspire to Reboot Her Brain (Apprentice House Press).

Stacey’s memoir explores the long and deeply personal process of healing from childhood sexual abuse, blending scientific insight with emotional clarity and vulnerability. We talk about the role of language in reclaiming one’s story, the emotional work of therapy, and what it means to keep going when the story gets hard.

The episode begins with Stacey reading a letter she wrote to her therapist about a meme they discussed in session—an entry point that opens the door to a layered, moving conversation.

Content Warning:This episode contains discussion of childhood sexual abuse. If you or someone you know needs support, please reach out to the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-4673 or visit the links below.

Support and resources:

* RAINN

* Zero Abuse Project

Resources & Links:Dispatches from the Couch is available here: Bookshop

Learn more about Loblolly Press’s second anniversary: loblollypress.com/pages/rooted

Subscribe to our newsletter for updates, essays, and behind-the-scenes content: loblollypress.substack.com

In this episode of Loblolly Press: In Conversation, we sit down with poet Cheryl Whitehead to talk about her debut collection, Distant Relations, published April 3rd, 2025 by us, Loblolly Press.

We don’t begin with poetry—and that’s intentional. This conversation moves through family, memory, rural life, and the language that holds it all. From a horse named Oliver to tin buckets and wind, Cheryl shows how poetry can emerge from what we inherit and what we’re still trying to name.

In this episode, you’ll hear:

* Cheryl read “Landscape of the Spangle Mind,” “Landscape with Fog,” “Band of Tambourines,” “Closer to the Ground,” and “God Is Plenty” from Distant Relations.

* How Cheryl’s mother shaped her voice, values, and creative life

* What it means to return home—and write from that distance

* The landscapes and people of rural North Carolina as poetic source material

* How music, especially Coltrane, informs the rhythm and structure of her work

* The long journey to publishing Distant Relations at age 61

* Why Oliver the horse shows up again and again in her poems

* Teaching, mentorship, and how students impact her writing practice

* The politics of staying rooted in the South—and writing through it

* The role of silence, fragmentation, and jazz-like movement in her poetic form

🔗 Links & Resources:

📚 Distant Relations by Cheryl Whitehead

🐻 Beasts of Chase — new chapbook from Andrew Mack

📦 The Poet Trio Bundle — 3 books for $42 (save $8) + free shipping on orders $25+

📰 Subscribe on Substack: loblollypress.substack.com. Get a free ebook download of Weekend Revival when you subscribe.

📸 Follow us on Instagram: @loblolly_press

🎧 Loblolly Press: In Conversation is a monthly podcast spotlighting writers from the American South—especially queer, BIPOC, and rural voices. Listen wherever you get your podcasts, and don’t forget to like, subscribe, download, and leave a review to help more people discover the voices of Loblolly Press.

Episode Credits:

🎤 Hosted by: Andrew Mack

📖 Guest: Cheryl Whitehead

🎧 Produced by: Loblolly Press

🎶 Intro/Outro Music: Rooftop Sunsets by Alexey Anisimov via Tune Tank