Rooted

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit rooted.substack.com If you missed the fabulous discussion between writer, sewist, fashion designer, editor, and Black Hawk, Mississippi, Exodus Oktavia Brownlow and two-time Emmy Award–winning producer and author Nikesha Elise Williams, then here’s your second chance to tune in. Of course, Nikesha and Exodus discussed the The Seven Daug...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit rooted.substack.com Ellen Morris Prewitt—along with Etoile, the protagonist of When We Were Murderous Time-Traveling Women —counts herself in the long lineage of Mississippians who find creative energy and freedom in New Orleans. During her twenty years in Jackson, Ellen would often escape to New Orleans for the weekend. “It took me mov...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit rooted.substack.com Our April Bottom Reader Book Club was truly a one-of-a-kind experience. Instead of our usual livestream, we needed to accommodate the tech needs of our featured writer Joesph Patri Brown, who is incarcerated on Parchman’s death row. Through a highly technical set-up of propped cardboard boxes in my co-facilitator Dr....

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit rooted.substack.com Since I’ve started doing the Bottom Reader Book Club livestreams at home, I’m always aware of the possibility that my four-year-old could go rogue during her bedtime routine and come busting into the room where I’m recording, ready to take center stage among the talking heads on screen. This week, I took comfort in t...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit rooted.substack.com On February 24, the Bottom Reader Book Club dipped out of watching the State of the Union and showed our patriotism in another way: we discussed W. Ralph Eubanks’ groundbreaking book When It’s Darkness on the Delta: How America’s Richest Soil Became Its Poorest Land . If you read the book—and listen to the book club...

I’ve long admired writer Beth Ann Fennelly—a fellow Mississippi transplant and memoirist. Not only did I devour her last book (and first collection of micro-memoirs), Heating & Cooling , but I later went back to her 2006 epistolary memoir Great with Child , which was a balm during my COVID-era pregnancy. Mississippi’s former poet laureate needs no introduction—which is fitting considering how I co...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit rooted.substack.com I kicked off the first Bottom Reader Book Club of 2026 with friends! Rather than our usual author chat, I talked with Leslie Barker, a director and playwright, and Talamieka Brice, a visual artist and filmmaker, about the 2023 novel Biography of X by Tupelo native Catherine Lacey. It felt appropriate to talk with art...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit rooted.substack.com Our Bottom Reader Book Club Discussion with Addie Citchens was so good it included a spontaneous bursting into song! I loved chatting with Addie and Talamieka about Dominion , a fast-paced, thrilling drama set in a fictional Delta town that is closely modeled on Clarksdale, MS. Talamieka and I both found the book tot...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit rooted.substack.com Last week, Talamieka Brice and I had a fabulous book club chat with Addie Citchens about her novel Dominion . BUT before I send that out, I must share this delightful conversation that Shira Muroff and I had with author Robert Busby waaaayy back in October about Robert’s debut story collection Bodock . Robert talked...

This is the latest installment in the Chronicles from Parchman series, a monthly column by writer L. Patri, who has been fighting his wrongful conviction on Parchman’s death row for over thirty years. Listen to the voiceover if you want to hear Mr. Patri read this essay. Demand for a moratorium is not a call to coddle criminals. It is a demand for accountability and integrity. It is a demand that...

This is the latest installment in the Chronicles from Parchman series, a monthly column by writer L. Patri, who has been fighting his wrongful conviction on Parchman’s death row for over thirty years. Listen to the voiceover if you want to hear Mr. Patri read this essay. About time, if you want to know my opinion. For three months, starting on November 1, 2023, I had been living in solitary confin...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit rooted.substack.com Thank you to everyone who tuned into my Bottom Reader Book Club conversation with Talamieka Brice and Preston Lauterbach earlier this month. Talamieka is an award-winning Mississippi artist and filmmaker who grew up on the blues—she was the perfect conversation partner for our talk with author Preston Lauterbach abou...

This is the latest installment in the Chronicles from Parchman series, a monthly column by writer L. Patri, who has been fighting his wrongful conviction on Parchman’s death row for over thirty years. Listen to the voiceover if you want to hear Mr. Patri read this essay. I am finding this to be the hardest story that I have written. So far, it has taken me more than six tries because each time I t...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit rooted.substack.com Thank you to everyone who tuned into my Bottom Reader Book Club conversation with Martha Park on Wednesday. I appreciated your thoughtful questions and comments. Martha is a writer and illustrator from Memphis, Tennessee, and the author of the recently released World Without End: Essays on the Apocalypse and After ,...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit rooted.substack.com Last month I had the pleasure of joining the Bottom Reader Book Club for the first time as the author guest, rather than facilitator. It was thrilling to be on the other side of the proverbial table, knowing that I’d be in good hands with my perceptive friend and fellow 2025 debut author Catherine Simone Gray as faci...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit rooted.substack.com I’ve been sitting too long on this wonderfully rich conversation that our Bottom Reader Book Club had in May with memoirist and TV writer Sarah LaBrie about her debut memoir No One Gets to Fall Apart —I’m so glad to finally share the recording with paid subscribers. No One Gets to Fall Apart grapples with the toll th...

This is the latest installment in the Chronicles from Parchman series, a monthly column by writer, L. Patri, who has been fighting his wrongful conviction on Parchman’s death row for over thirty years. You can listen to the voiceover if you want to listen to Mr. Patri reading “Robbery by Default.” Please read the postscript for a dispatch from Mr. Patri regarding the upcoming execution date of Ric...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit rooted.substack.com In April, we talked with author Neesha Powell-Ingabire—who was just nominated for Georgia Author of the Year !—about their debut memoir-in-essays Come By Here. Neesha was vulnerable, honest, and authentic. She talked about how in writing about her own family history, she uncovered important moments in Black history t...

This is the latest installment in the Chronicles from Parchman series, a monthly column by writer, L. Patri, who has been fighting his wrongful conviction on Parchman’s death row for over thirty years. This week, Mr. Patri and I were able to record him reading his essay. Click “Listen to Post” if you want the audio experience. Important to note for this essay—though he writes under the pseudonym “...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit rooted.substack.com I hope you enjoyed reading the Rooted questionnaire of artist and owner of Wolfe Studio Bebe Wolfe. Today, I’m happy to share my full conversation with Bebe just with paid subscribers. You can listen on Substack or via the Rooted podcast on Spotify (other podcasting platforms will only have the preview version). Our...

L. Patri reads his essay "Less Than a Chicken," the latest for his column, "Chronicles from Parchman." This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit rooted.substack.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit rooted.substack.com Despite some technical difficulties on my end, our book club discussion with Catherine Simone Gray about her debut memoir Proud Flesh was a delight. Catherine was warm and thoughtful, and our book club participants were so insightful with their questions. I can’t tell you how grateful I am for this group of wise, int...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit rooted.substack.com Last week Beth Kander joined our book club —moderated by me and Rooted Community Editor Shira Muroff—to talk about her darkly comedic, genre-defying, and utterly original novel I Made It Out of Clay . Beth was charming and funny and generous. She shared how she wrote the first draft of the book in under a month (spoi...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit rooted.substack.com Today I’m sharing my full recorded interview with Maude Schuyler Clay . This uncut version of our conversation is just for paid subscribers. You can also listen to the episode via the Rooted podcast on Spotify (other podcasting platforms will only have the preview version). Maude is a delightful storyteller, and thro...

In December, author Max Hipp joined our book club to talk about his unforgettable collection of stories: What Doesn’t Kill You Opens Your Heart . Max revealed that the stories in this collection span twenty years of writing. As a musician, Max discussed the the distinct ways he approaches writing stories and writing songs. And he also shared his process of fictionalizing real places in his work. T...