Settling the Borderland deals with the intimate connection between journalism and literature, both fields in which work by women has been underrepresented. This book has a twin focus: the work of journalists who became some of the greatest novelists, poets, and short-story writers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in America, several of whom are men, and contemporary journalists who best exemplify the effective use of literary techniques in news coverage. Although five women are emphasized here (Katherine Anne Porter, Eudora Welty, Joan Didion, Sara Davidson, and Susan Orlean), three men whose work was profoundly influenced by journalism also are included. Edgar Allan Poe, Walt Whitman, and John Steinbeck are well known as writers of poetry, short stories, and novels, but they, too, are among the "other voices" rarely included in studies of literary journalism. In Settling the Borderland, Jan Whitt presents a thorough analysis of the increasingly indistinct lines between truth and fiction and between fact and creative narrative in contemporary media.

Burning Crosses and Activist Journalism: Hazel Brannon Smith and the Mississippi Civil Rights Movement celebrates the contributions of the first woman to win a Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing (1964). Owner and publisher of four weekly newspapers in Mississippi, Smith began her journalism career as a states rights Dixiecrat and segregationist, but became an icon for progressive thought on racial and ethnic issues. Though befriended by editors such as Hodding Carter Jr. and Ira B. Harkey Jr., Smith was a target of the White Citizens' Council and was boycotted by advertisers. During the civil rights movement, a cross was burned in her yard and one of her newspaper offices was firebombed. Before her death in 1994, she endured foreclosure, memory loss, and public humiliation, but she never lost faith in journalism or in the power of informed debate.

A scholar of Southern literature and culture, Jan Whitt has written a personal narrative about adoption, childhood abuse, and fifty years of searching for her family in rural Appalachia. A testament to the power of love and the resilience of the human spirit, Rain on a Strange Roof unflinchingly explores death and loss at the same time that it celebrates the transformative power of love and literature. An award-winning professor, Whitt teaches courses in American and British literature, literary journalism, media, and women's studies. Quoting from films, novels, and short stories about the American South, Whitt weaves a narrative about the necessity for human connection and the desire for home.

In the documentary Celluloid Closet (1995), actress Susan Sarandon said films are "important - and they're dangerous - because we're the keepers of the dreams." The visual media hold a powerful sway, influencing attitudes on class, gender, race, and ethnicity, politics, religion, and sexual orientation. Dangerous Dreams: Essays on American Film and Television employs aesthetic, feminist, historical, Marxist, psychoanalytic, semiological, and sociological criticism to explore five decades of film and television texts that have captivated audiences. From Ordinary People (1980) to Shutter Island (2011) and from The Beverly Hillbillies (1962-1971) to Sex and the City (1998-2004), the study is divided into four sections, each comprised of several essays that explore the effects of narrative and visual texts. Sections include "The Role of Literature in Film and Television", "Portrayals of Race, Ethnicity, and Sexual Orientation in Film"; "Portrayals of Race, Ethnicity, and Class in Film and Television"; and "Gender Images in Film and Television". The 16 single-authored essays that comprise Dangerous Dreams celebrate the interconnectivity of film, literature, and television and do not suggest the primacy or superiority of any of these texts, which have in common both a creative process and an immeasurable cultural impact.

Reflections in a Critical Eye is intended to appeal both to scholars of Carson McCullers and to those unaffiliated with colleges and universities who read and celebrate her life and work. Following an introduction for newcomers to Southern literature and culture and to McCullers' life and work, the collection presents essays about diverse topics: * McCullers in the tradition of Southern women's nonfiction prose * daughters as outlaw figures in The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter and The Member of the Wedding * gender and the interplay among the roles characters assume in The Ballad of the Sad Cafe * analysis of The Ballad of the Sad Cafe to explore alcohol as an important signifier in McCullers' life and work * the political backdrop of McCullers' most well-known works * same-sex relationships in McCullers' novels and short stories * and the phenomenon of masquerade in The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter and The Ballad of the Sad Cafe.