Landon Bryant
Southern Scholar, Comedian, Author, and Voice Behind @LandonTalks
Laurel, Mississippi
If you’ve spent any time on the internet over the last few years, chances are you’ve stumbled across Landon Bryant (@landontalks). Maybe it was a video about church fellowship halls, small-town traditions, or the peculiar beauty of Southern life. You probably laughed (and sent it to someone immediately).
What makes Landon’s voice resonate isn’t just his humor—it’s his affection. Beneath the sharp observations and quick wit is a genuine appreciation for the people, places, and traditions that shape the South. He has a way of celebrating the region without romanticizing it, poking fun without punching down, and finding meaning in the everyday moments most of us overlook.
What part of your story do you think only the South could have written?
I don’t think I could’ve come from anywhere else. I’m what happens when you’re raised in both the beauty shop and the red dirt of the garden. I grew up around gardens and garden clubs, and being raised in that whole range of places taught me how to be okay in just about any situation I land in. And it’s the land too. I’m from the Piney Woods, this humid, subtropical stretch of Mississippi, and I feel connected to it. I don’t think I’d have the sense of self I have if I hadn’t had to figure out how to be myself right here, where I was raised and when I was raised. I wouldn’t be me without my family.
What does the South get right that others often miss?
We get hospitality right. We get togetherness right. We know how to see the big picture, and we know the worth of a slow day spent with good people. We get that the view of the woods from our back porch is our wealth. This place is our wealth. We’ve got a language all our own. And we’ve got this beautiful gift of diversity down here that I don’t think folks always give us credit for. And the food. We’ve got the best food there is.
What’s something about the South you’re still trying to understand?
I’m still trying to understand how a place can hold so much love and so much hurt at the same time. The South raised me on hospitality and togetherness, and it also carries a history that’s heavy and painful. I don’t think you get to claim the beauty without sitting with the hard parts too. I love it here with my whole heart, and I still want us to keep growing.
What does Southern storytelling require that others don’t?
It requires knowing the joy is in the journey, not just the destination. Get us there, but take your time and paint us a picture. It’s why Faulkner’s sentences run so long and why Eudora Welty had so much to say. We’ve got to describe it so you can feel it, not just hear it.
If the South had a soundtrack, what would it sound like?
It sounds like screen doors and creaky porch floors and rocking chairs. Cicadas. Birds of every kind, and mockingbirds running through all their songs. It sounds like percolators and stovetop timers. It sounds like wind in the trees, and the way the humidity kind of dulls all of it down.
What’s a line (lyric, phrase, or saying) that lives rent-free in your head?
“I’d have to feel better to die.” That’s incredible Southern linguistic work.
Ashley Jones
Birmingham, Alabama
Poet, Author, former Alabama Poet Laureate (first person of color and youngest person in Alabama’s history to hold this position)
What does the South get right that others often miss?
So many people miss the way we stand up for what’s right here in the South. Sure, the news stories and even the laws that get passed don’t always tell the truth of what the people want, but where is that the case anywhere in this world? What you can see if you actually come here is a true open-heartedness and a knowledge of our history of civil rights activism. You’ll see communities that embrace and encourage. Sure, you’ll see the less happy stuff, but you will always miss the heart of a place if you only see the loud, angry, out-there parts of it.
What part of your story do you think only the South could have written?
The South is an honest place, for better or for worse, and I think if I wasn’t a Southern Black woman, if I wasn’t a Birmingham girl, I would not understand the history of this nation, and I would not be as committed to truth, justice, and equity as I am in my life and in my work. I couldn’t have written the books I’ve written which center my identity as a Black Southern woman. And, frankly, I wouldn’t be able to season food well if I wasn’t from the South. That’s just facts!
Hannah Dasher
Nashville, Tennessee
Headlining Country Artist, Cookbook Author, Guitar Goddess
What part of your story do you think only the South could have written?
The beginning. The raising, the little country church with covered dish dinners where everybody helped raise everybody’s kids, where “yes ma’am’s,” “yessir’s,” and handwritten thank-you letters are still expected. And where country radio was as prevalent as cotton and peanuts.
What’s a line (lyric, phrase, or saying) that lives rent-free in your head?
“Chicken crap don’t make chicken pie.”
Marcus Amaker
Charleston, South Carolina
Graphic Designer, Electronic Musician, Opera Librettist, Mentor, and Charleston’s First Poet Laureate
If the South had a soundtrack, what would it sound like?
Experimental electronic music
blasting from heavy speakers
at a house show
in North Charleston,
each vibration
of the bass
pounding in
people’s chests,
distorted melodies
and dirty shoes
crossed legged
on the floor.
Slurred, and
love-steady
Conversation.
What does Southern storytelling require that others don’t?
Patience and an open heart to break traditional thinking. Patience to let the stories of these lands unfold in their own time because there’s still so much to discover. And an open heart to let the definition of the South expand instead of retract.
Sean Dietrich
Birmingham, Alabama
Columnist, Humorist, Multi-Instrumentalist, Author, and Stand-Up Storyteller
What’s a line (lyric, phrase, or saying) that lives rent-free in your head?
Helen Keller, who is from Tuscumbia, Alabama, said: “Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see a shadow.” I’ve always liked that.
What does the South get right that others often miss?
Hospitality. There is a culture of service in the South that often gets generalized as pouring sweet tea into a Mason jar and serving your company deviled eggs. But there is more to our hospitality than these tried clichés. Last year, I met a man from New Jersey who said he broke down in Georgia, and was amazed that everyone from the highway patrolmen to the auto mechanic busted their tails to make sure he was taken care of. They even treated him to a hotel room for the night while his car was fixed. And while that sort of Samaritan-hood might take place in other US regions, the South has made it an art form.
