BernaDeane South and I never met.

We never met.

But her words, so carefully chosen, inspired me to not punish myself for living.

We never met. But she always urged me in the gentlest of ways to keep going.

We never met. But somehow, someway it felt like she had always known me.

We never met. But I swear I could hear her voice whenever I read her words.

We never met … we never met.

And that is the one thing — the one thing — I will surely regret.

 

What one person said about her book, a copy of which she sent to me:

Berna Deane South’s Among the Feathered Warriors should carry a warning label. The stories and poems in this collection seduce you with their honest and elegant language and then, without warning, they go for the throat and refuse to let you go. Joyful or full of fury, wise and forgiving, or trapped in mazes of ignorance and hate, the stubborn survivors who populate South’s pages always ring true.
They are as American as gooseberry pie and cockfights.
In the tradition of revolutionary Southern writers like Flannery O’Connor and transformative poets like Anne Sexton, Berna Deane South’s work vibrates with impatient life.
And like no one else, South’s voice opens your heart to a world we recognize as the honest shadow of our own, a world where everything is treasured but nothing is safe.