Southern Landscapes: Writing Place, History, and Identity

The Southern United States has long been a rich source of inspiration for creative writers. Its landscapes—lush and humid, dusty and sun-drenched, wild and cultivated—are as varied as the region’s history and culture. From the sprawling bayous of Louisiana to the rolling hills of Tennessee, the Southern landscape provides a canvas for stories that reflect both the beauty and the complexities of the human experience. Creative writing in this context becomes a deeply intertwined expression of place, history, and identity. Writers who are drawn to the South often find themselves navigating a terrain that is not just geographical, but also cultural and emotional, where the land itself holds stories—both personal and collective.

The South as a Character: Writing the Landscape

One of the most distinctive features of Southern creative writing is how the landscape itself becomes a character within the narrative. Writers often describe the land not merely as a backdrop, but as an active participant in the lives of their characters. The oppressive heat, the expansive skies, the dense forests, the winding rivers, and the constant presence of nature, all shape the experiences and psyche of those who inhabit the region. In this sense, the South is not just a place where stories happen—it is a place that influences the very course of those stories.

Take, for example, the works of William Faulkner. His fictional Yoknapatawpha County, a place grounded in the soil of Mississippi, is as integral to his stories as any of his characters. Faulkner’s vivid descriptions of the land, from the swamps to the cotton fields, imbue his work with a sense of the South’s heavy, unyielding history. His characters are often defined by their relationship to the land and the legacies it holds—both personal and historical. In Faulkner’s world, the land is imbued with memory, and the past is never far from the present.

In Southern writing, nature often serves as a lens through which the human experience is refracted, whether it’s the stark beauty of the countryside or the harsh realities of poverty, racial division, and personal suffering. The physical landscape often parallels the emotional and psychological landscapes that writers explore, making the region an especially rich soil for storytelling.

Southern History and Memory: Writing the Past Into the Present

The Southern United States is a region whose history is inextricably bound to its geography. The legacy of slavery, the Civil War, and the turbulent civil rights movements of the 20th century all permeate the land, shaping both the material and spiritual world of its people. In creative writing, the South is often portrayed as a place where the past is never fully gone; rather, it lingers like a shadow that stretches across generations.

For writers, grappling with the weight of this history is often central to their creative process. The land, as the site of so much historical trauma and cultural inheritance, becomes a place of reckoning. Novels like The Secret History by Donna Tartt (set in a fictionalized version of Mississippi) and Beloved by Toni Morrison (although not set in the South, it heavily references Southern themes) confront the ghosts of slavery and its long-lasting effects on individuals and families. The landscape is often seen as a place where history’s scars are both invisible and yet ever-present, shaping the way people interact with one another and the world around them.

Southern writers often find themselves working in a tradition that demands engagement with memory and the past. The land itself holds these memories, both as a silent witness and an active participant. In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston presents a narrative that moves through time, examining not just the land but the ways in which history’s wounds and triumphs are carried within individuals. Hurston’s use of the South—particularly the ever-present influence of the water—demonstrates how the land can symbolize the cyclical nature of life, of survival, and of memory.

In modern Southern writing, the complexity of race, class, and identity also looms large. Contemporary writers like Jesmyn Ward, with her haunting depictions of post-Katrina Mississippi in Salvage the Bones, explore how both the physical and emotional landscapes of the South are shaped by tragedy. The storm, both literal and metaphorical, comes to symbolize how deeply the land is marked by history, disaster, and resilience. Ward’s work brings into sharp focus the relationships between generations, families, and the land they inhabit—relationships that are often rooted in loss, survival, and the struggle for belonging.

The South as a Space for Personal and Cultural Identity

Southern writers are often concerned with identity—personal, familial, and cultural. The South, with its complex history of immigration, slavery, and conflict, has long been a crucible for questions of who belongs, who is excluded, and what it means to be Southern.

One of the most enduring themes in Southern literature is the question of belonging. Southern writers like Flannery O’Connor and Carson McCullers often explore characters who are outsiders, misfits, or people at odds with the communities in which they live. The South’s distinct regional identity is both a point of pride and a source of isolation, and the tension between these two impulses is a recurring theme in creative works from the region. The South is a place where the past is always felt in the present, and where the future is often shaped by longstanding traditions, social norms, and deeply embedded racial and class structures.

Writers like Richard Wright, whose Native Son is set in Chicago but engages deeply with Southern themes of race and identity, foreground the impact of the South on the lives of African Americans in both the South and the North. Wright’s experience in the South, with its segregationist policies and racial violence, shaped his view of race and identity in America. In his works, the Southern landscape is both a literal and figurative space of confinement, oppression, and struggle for dignity.

Contemporary Southern writers like Kiese Laymon, in Heavy, explore the intersection of race, body, and place. Laymon’s writing is deeply personal, reflecting on how growing up in Mississippi shaped his identity as a Black man in America. For Laymon and others, the South is not only a place of beauty and tradition but also one of constant tension, a space where personal and cultural identity are continually being renegotiated.

The Southern Gothic Tradition: Writing the Darker Side of the Landscape

One of the most iconic genres to emerge from Southern creative writing is the Southern Gothic. This subgenre combines elements of horror, mystery, and social commentary to explore the darker, more unsettling aspects of the Southern landscape and psyche. Southern Gothic writers often focus on decay, violence, and the grotesque, using the land and the characters who inhabit it to reflect themes of moral corruption, alienation, and societal breakdown.

In Southern Gothic fiction, the landscape often mirrors the moral and psychological disintegration of its inhabitants. The rotting plantation houses, overgrown cemeteries, and abandoned shacks become symbols of a South haunted by its past. Writers like Tennessee Williams, Carson McCullers, and Flannery O’Connor have all used the Southern Gothic tradition to examine how the South’s historical sins—particularly slavery, racism, and violence—continue to haunt the present.

In Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire, the streets of New Orleans themselves seem to bleed with history and emotion, while in O’Connor’s Wise Blood, the stark, barren landscapes of the rural South reflect the internal desolation of characters struggling with faith and identity. In McCullers’ The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, the South is a place of isolation, where individuals seek connection but remain locked in a cycle of misunderstanding and loneliness.

The Southern Gothic tradition is not merely about the grotesque or macabre; it also carries with it a deep sense of the tragic, a recognition of the brokenness that exists both within individuals and within society as a whole. This dark vision of the South, however, also offers a space for transformation, redemption, and the possibility of growth—even if such change is slow, painful, or uncertain.

The Landscape of Southern Writing

Creative writing in a Southern state landscape offers an opportunity to explore the intricacies of history, identity, and place. The land itself, whether fertile and welcoming or harsh and unforgiving, serves as both a literal and figurative foundation for many of the region’s most compelling stories. The South is a place where the past is never fully gone, where the ghosts of history linger in the trees, rivers, and soil. It is a place where beauty and decay exist side by side, where the land shapes the lives of its people as much as the people shape the land.

From Faulkner’s sprawling narratives to Jesmyn Ward’s stark depictions of post-Katrina Mississippi, the South’s literary tradition offers a powerful testament to the way in which landscape and history intertwine to create complex, haunting, and ultimately redemptive narratives. In the Southern landscape, every river, hill, and field holds a story—one that is waiting to be told, remembered, and written into the fabric of the future.

Ready to write your Southern tales? Take a look at our courses today!