Ed Southern

Ed Southern is the author of Fight Songs: A Story of Love and Sports in a Complicated South (2021, Blair), a finalist for the 2022 Southern Book Prize (no relation). His shorter work, in a variety of genres, has appeared in The Bitter Southerner, storySouth, the North Carolina Literary Review, the North Carolina 10×10 Festival, The Dirty Spoon, the Asheville Poetry Review, and Wake Forest Magazine, among others. Since 2008 he has been the executive director of the North Carolina Writers’ Network, one of the largest writers’ organizations of its kind in the country. In 2015 he won the Fortner Award for service to the literary arts in North Carolina.

Ten Things I Can’t Do Without 

1. The good humor not to be overly earnest about it
2. The good manners not to be too much a smartass about it, either
3. The proper balance in between
4. The perspective to remember that the editors won’t hold me to this list in the event of emergency
5. The grace to comply with their request, since they have been kind enough to accept my work
6. The wit to keep this going to 10
7. The humility to wonder if I should
8. The pride to answer myself with a hell, yeah
9. The good sense to wonder, again. And, maybe, again
10. College football