Begin with Rock, End with Water is John Lane’s third collection of essays. In this new gathering of narratives Lane pushes even deeper into a twenty-year lyrical consideration of his place (and the place of all of us) in the changing natural world.

Breathing and Walking Around is not a memoir. It is a record of four years’ worth of observations of common people, everyday events, and the natural world made by Kathy Bradley from her home in the coastal plains of South Georgia. A lawyer by training, a storyteller by nature, she shares with precision and layer upon layer of sensory image simple tales that emerge, in the end, as parables.

Cancer and Healing: Memoirs of Gratitude and Hope provides first-person glimpses into the cancer experiences of eighteen Baptists. In fact, every person connected with this book, including the publishing director, editor, and writers, has had and/or currently has cancer. Their very lives comprise the primary resources of this work. They share passionately about their own survival experiences and compassionately for those who do not survive and for those for whom the announcement of cancer may picture into their tomorrows. These writers, male and female, white and black, live in ten states. They have suffered various cancers: carcinoma, leukemia, lymphoma, multiple myeloma, melanoma, and others, which have affected many parts of their bodies and emotions. They have not written to make money. All royalties from sales of this book will be donated to the American Cancer Society.

CrossRoads: A Southern Culture Annual is a publication dedicated to the interdisciplinary study and artistic appreciation of the South (broadly defined) and Southern culture. The scholarly work in CrossRoads explores such topics as Southern language, literature, art, music, food, religion, race, ethnicity, gender, and politics. The creative work in CrossRoads includes such genres as poetry, short fiction, creative non-fiction, and visual art.

CrossRoads: A Southern Culture Annual is a publication dedicated to the interdisciplinary study and artistic appreciation of the South. CrossRoads (2005) explores such topics as Southern language, literature, visual art, music, and food, and that volume features scholarly work by Donald Davidson, Donald Edward Davis, Fred Sauceman, Robert Hawkins, Emily Loop, Ryan A. Brasseaux, Annabel Alderman, Kathryn Bright Gurkin, and many others.

Unfulfilled by city life, Amy Blackmarr sold her thriving Kansas business and returned to the pine woods of South Georgia to follow a dream. For five years, she lived in her grandfather’s "old scarecrow of a fishing cabin" beside the pond. Now with warmth, humor, and a strong, clear voice, she brings her rustic world alive in stories about her dogs, life without hot water, visits from an alligator, and the life and death of her grandmother. Blackmarr also writes candidly of the demons she must conquer in her own nature to become the person she longs to be while continually proving there is wonder to be found in every moment. In the tradition of Thoreau’s Walden and Annie Dillard’s Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, Going to Ground is a tribute to the transcendent beauty of nature and the joys, fears, lessons, and serenity of the solitary life. Originally published in 1997, Mercer University Press proudly introduces this new edition.

When the award of a graduate fellowship brings Amy Blackmarr to Kansas from her grandfather’s old pond-side fishing shack in rural South Georgia—"where the scents of pine straw on damp mornings and peanuts drying in October fields were deep and warm and familiar"—she rents a hippie house in the country that quickly becomes the setting for a tangled string of quirky events. With characteristic humor, irony, and an unfailing sense of wonder, Blackmarr gets lost in the woods, battles wasps but falls in love with a roach, frets over the "corruption" of her mother, calls the sheriff on her neighbors, laments her perfectionism, collects bugs in a bowl, and takes in yet another stray dog. The chaotic, often contemplative, always revealing journey into her own nature is reflected in the vibrant natural settings Blackmarr inhabits; yet her discoveries provide readers warm and lyrical proof that they don’t have to escape into the woods to understand themselves, or their world, more deeply. Originally published in 1999, this edition of House of Steps includes a new unpublished essay.

Morning is a part of everyone’s life. But relatively little has been written directly about morning itself because it is a background rather than a major theme. In his new book of creative nature non-fiction, author Philip Lee Williams takes us on a journey that is scientific, artistic, and very personal.

With a compelling mixture of humor and insight, Moody offers his reflections on religion and American life. Standing at the intersection of the public and the private, and speaking with authentic faith unfettered by fear, Moody offers words of clarity and compassion about some of the more troublesome issues of our time. Moody describes candidly the joys and sorrows that have come his way and how the simple gifts of faith, hope, and love have served as sources of both endurance and delight.