The Deep South is peppered throughout with literary landmarks that draw a steady stream of bibliophiles to pay homage to their favourite authors, characters and their stomping grounds. Deep South Magazine Editor Erin Z. Bass is a regular on the Southern literary trail, and while looking for more sites to cover in the magazine realised the need for a comprehensive literary guide to the area. Many E-books, both fiction and factual, now come complete with hyperlinks to the places described amongst their electronic pages, transporting the reader directly from the comfort of their armchair with one click. Deep South Magazine’s Literary Trail App, which can be downloaded to a tablet or smartphone, is both roadmap and guidebook to the many places of literary interest in every corner of the South, essential for any Southern literary pilgrimage – real or virtual.
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Deep South Magazine‘s Literary Trail App is a wealth of information for fans of Southern writers. You might not be able to meet your favourite Southern writer — whether it be Flannery O’Connor, Tennessee Williams or William Faulkner — but you can get to know them through the places they lived, frequented and inspired. With 179 sites and more than a thousand photos, the Deep South Literary Trail App travels across the South to writers’ homes and museums, libraries, bookstores, landmarks and more.
Visit the New Orleans apartment where Tennessee Williams began writing A Streetcar Named Desire and the Key West Hotel where he finished the play. Pay homage to Flannery O’Connor at her farm and gravesite in Georgia or make a pilgrimage to Harper Lee’s Maycomb in Monroeville, Alabama. Head down to Florida and travel Zora Neale Hurston’s Dust Tracks Heritage Trail or see the house where Jack Kerouac was living when On the Road was published. That’s not to mention the multitude of sites related to Faulkner and Ernest Hemingway, along with living writers like Alice Walker and Pat Conroy.
The app also includes tours and events, plus restaurants, bars and hotels with a literary theme, from the Mockingbird Cafe in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, to the O. Henry Hotel in Greensboro, North Carolina. Recently updated just in time for summer road trips, new and notable entries are those for Georgia’s Gone With the Wind Trail and Texas’s Wal-Mart turned library.
Entries are organized by state and include a short description, contact information, hours and prices for visiting. A handy map feature shows you exactly where the site is located and tells you how far you are from it, while insider tips share information like what spot to keep an eye out for in Eudora Welty’s back yard and which tour guide to ask for at the home of Joel Chandler Harris in Atlanta.
Whether you’re in the mood for a complete Southern literary road trip or just looking for an independent bookstore during your next visit to the South, the wealth of information in this online resource is a must-have for all followers of the Southern literary trail.
original illustration by Dean Lewis