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Carmen K. Sisson
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If you want to find the South, ask directions from a Southerner. If you want to find the people,              meet them where they live. Because the South is more than hurricanes, heat, and humidity ... The South is more than sweet tea, antebellum homes, and the Civil War ... Every story a writer could ever want to tell is here, buried beneath the soil.

If you want to find the South, ask directions from a Southerner.

There is something extravagant and wild about what they have to say — snakes on the roof of a car, swamps, a delta, sweat, the smell of sea, buzz of an air conditioner, Coca-Cola ... ~ Natalie Goldberg

If you want to find the people, meet them where they live.

Being Southern isn't talking with an accent ... or rocking on a porch while drinking sweet tea, or knowing how to tell a good story. It's how you were brought up ... family (blood kin or not) is sacred ... And food, along with college football, is darn near a religion. ~ Jan Norris

Because the South is more than hurricanes, heat, and humidity ...

Summer in the Deep South is not only a season, a climate — it's a dimension. Floating in it, one must be either proud or submerged. ~ Eugene Walter

The South is more than sweet tea, antebellum homes, and the Civil War ...

How often have I lain beneath rain on a strange roof, thinking of home. ~ William Faulkner

Every story a writer could ever want to tell is here, buried beneath the soil.

And after 30 years of covering the South, I'm just scratching the surface. Faulkner said: "To understand the world, you must first understand a place like Mississippi." Consider this an introduction.

Engagement is not a buzzword — it's a survival skill.

If you're looking for a writer to aggregate content, regurgitate press releases, or deify pundits, I'm not the one. If you're looking for a writer to spew statistics, quote jargon, and bill by the hour, well, that's not me either.

If you want to connect with people, we should talk.

If you want to know how people feel, what they think, and who they are, I might be your writer. If you want a seasoned journalist who prefers to be in the field instead of behind a desk, someone equally skilled with both pen and camera, someone who keeps a suitcase packed and notebook ready, I might be your writer. If you want a journalist who is a native Southerner — who understands its people, knows its terrain, remembers its past and cares about its future — I might be your writer.


Because if it's people you want to reach, I'm all in. And if you've got a story, you've got my interest. Email me today.

A prom breaks a color barrier

She says while she supports tonight’s event, it’s going to take a lot to heal race relations in Ashburn, a town where people still refer to the railroad tracks separating the white and black neighborhoods as “the line.” She points out that just last week, a group of white students held a private prom at a nearby marina, heedless of this week’s prom, which had been heavily announced and heralded by what the local weekly newspaper called a “media storm.”

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Carmen Sisson April 23, 2007 March 14, 2011Recent Bylines Ashburn, Christian Science Monitor, education, Georgia, racism 1

Post-Katrina charity starts with a home

It’s the middle of nowhere and the hour is nothing, a sliver of time dutifully noted by the alarm clock’s efficient blue glow. It’s surprisingly cold here in Pearlington, and the volunteers burrow more deeply into their bunks, grateful for the woolen blankets that stave off the chill. In the darkness, shadows rise and fall, punctuated by soft groans as worn bedsprings do what they can to help tired shoulders. This isn’t the Four Seasons, but as far as volunteer camps go, this wooden bunkhouse is luxury accommodations, a home away from home. The scrape of clay-caked Timberlands on the bunkhouse floor announces the latest arrivals – a father-son team from Dansville, N.Y., here to spend a week building houses with Locklin’s group. Next week, fresh volunteers will arrive, some armed with little more than goodwill.

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Carmen Sisson March 27, 2007 October 14, 2018Recent Bylines Christian Science Monitor, disaster, Good Samaritans, hurricane, Hurricane Katrina, Mississippi, Pearlington, volunteerism 1

A very thin blue line

White pauses for a moment as he passes the spot where the library still stands. With a distant look in his eyes, he softly admits that he hasn’t had a raise or vacation in three years. But, for him, it isn’t about the money. He says it’s about the little things, like making a child smile or giving a ride to an elderly resident to spare her the grueling walk down streets still laden with debris. There are moments like last week, when a frantic mother called from her job to say her 8-year-old son had found a gun in the woods.

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Carmen Sisson February 28, 2007 October 14, 2018Recent Bylines Christian Science Monitor, disaster, hurricane, Hurricane Katrina, law enforcement, Mississippi, Pass Christian 1

No Waterloo for Napoleon House

Conversation dips and swells to the soaring lilt of the “1812 Overture,” as restaurant patrons chat amiably while waiting to be seated. French phrases swirl through clipped New York consonants and Louisiana drawls as flannel-shirted men and Chanel-suited women hunch over steaming bowls of gumbo. This could be 1940s Paris or modern-day Manhattan. These could be paupers or princes. Time and truth have a way of getting lost here, weaving an ambiance that still enchants, even in a post-Katrina world.

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Carmen Sisson January 3, 2007 October 14, 2018Recent Bylines Christian Science Monitor, hurricane, Hurricane Katrina, Louisiana, New Orleans 2

Write a book in 30 days? What a novel idea.

The chicken and I are just two of the 79,813 participants in the sixth annual National Novel Writing Month – NaNoWriMo, for short – a self-directed, kamikaze approach to writing that embraces quantity over quality. The premise, dreamed up by San Francisco writer Chris Baty, is simple. Everyone says they’ll write a book one day. What if each person wrote a 50,000-word novel in 30 days, setting aside fears and making a mad dash for the impossible? It’s a beautifully insane scheme that appeals to insomniacs, masochists, and – apparently – the would-be writer in thousands of us.

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Carmen Sisson December 8, 2006 March 14, 2011Recent Bylines Baton Rouge, Christian Science Monitor, Louisiana, NaNoWriMo, offbeat, writing 1

Fiddler on the Youth

Ruby Jane Smith is perched on a shaggy floor pillow in the middle of her sky-blue bedroom, suede-booted feet crossed, head tilted, and brows furrowed as she tries to remember the night she forgot what city she was in during a performance. It’s understandable if the past three years seem a blur. Between winning her first fiddle competition after only six lessons, taking the Mississippi State Fiddler title, and performing at the Grand Ole Opry, life’s kind of busy these days. Particularly when you’re only 11 and there’s a disco birthday party to plan and Lemony Snicket to read.

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Carmen Sisson November 13, 2006 March 14, 2011Recent Bylines arts, children, Christian Science Monitor, Columbus, Mississippi, music 1

The freedom ferry

Tall reeds line the banks of the Alabama River, swaying lazily in the dark water’s eddies as the wild tenor of crickets and cicadas dips and soars through the October stillness. Fat water moccasins sun themselves on cracked red clay as long-legged egrets snatch greedily from a school of water beetles skimming the surface. A fish jumps once, then twice. A man laughs once, then again as he joins a handful of people boarding the ferry. All God’s creatures are free in Gee’s Bend.

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Carmen Sisson October 13, 2006 February 26, 2013Published Favorites, Recent Bylines Alabama, Christian Science Monitor, Civil Rights, Gees Bend, racism 0

After Katrina, football rallies a town

Friday night’s game allows residents a chance to get away, but no one forgets. Approximately 236 people died in Mississippi, 95 in Harrison County. Seventeen of those people were pulled from the muddy waters of this field, where the Pirates are now battling Poplarville. Rather than being sacrilegious, it seems appropriate – football is a fiercely loved pastime here, and there’s never been a better place to be, even before Katrina made the Pirates the only show in town.

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Carmen Sisson September 29, 2006 October 14, 2018Published Favorites, Recent Bylines Christian Science Monitor, football, hurricane, Hurricane Katrina, Pass Christian, sports 1

Home is where the fire is

I’ve never been one to turn down a hot story, and Centralia is smoking – literally. A Pennsylvania coal mining town that’s been on fire 44 years; 11 stubborn old-timers who refuse to leave; fiery sidewalks that melt the soles off your shoes. How could I resist? An abandoned strip mine caught fire in 1962, igniting an underground coal seam that has burned under Centralia ever since. Experts say it could burn another 250 years. I imagined an eerie, smoke-laden atmosphere, sun streaming across a barren landscape, miles of scorched Earth. Why would people live in such a Godforsaken place?

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Carmen Sisson August 9, 2006 April 25, 2015Recent Bylines Centralia, Christian Science Monitor, coal mining, environment, fire, offbeat, Pennsylvania 0

Unflagging devotion

From her perch high atop the factory floor, she pulls red and white stripes through her hands over and over, being careful to keep the seams neat and tidy. Always a perfectionist, she is even more prudent here. This isn’t just any flag – it’s Old Glory. And this isn’t just any version – it’s an interment flag to drape a veteran’s coffin, one last embrace from a grateful country.

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Carmen Sisson July 5, 2006 February 26, 2013Published Favorites, Recent Bylines Alabama, Christian Science Monitor, Huntsville, military 0

Remembering the ‘Mighty O’

Silently, the veterans of the USS Oriskany, a Korean War-era aircraft carrier, huddled together, collars turned up against the wind, hats drawn low to hide tears as they stood on the decks of some 400 charter and pleasure boats dotting the Gulf of Mexico in a loose semicircle Wednesday morning. This was her moment, her final battle, and they were determined to do it right. Thirty-seven minutes later, she was gone, a puff of grey in an azure sky – scuttled 24 miles off the coast of Pensacola, Fla., in a 212-foot deep watery grave, where it will serve another function for a nation, as an artificial reef.

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Carmen Sisson May 19, 2006 February 26, 2013Published Favorites, Recent Bylines Christian Science Monitor, Florida, military, Pensacola 1

Football team wears faith on its sleeve

Contrails of sweat arc through the air as a football player slams his opponent into the wall, the momentum carrying him over the four-foot barrier and nearly into the nacho-laden laps of a family of four. Fans leap to their feet and pump their fists to a chorus of “Who let the dogs out? Woof! Woof!” With a triumphant grin, the airborne player vaults over the wall and plants his feet firmly back on the green Astroturf as a parade of silver-clad women shimmies into the end zone. Football is the main event on this Friday night, though religion is a definite subtext – with a Bible giveaway, a Christian concert, and, controversially, football players wearing jerseys with biblical references.

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Carmen Sisson May 11, 2006 March 14, 2011Recent Bylines Alabama, Birmingham, Christian Science Monitor, football, religion, sports 1
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