Candice Dyer

Oct 17, 2024 | ajc.com | Candice Dyer

This story was originally published by ArtsATL. For journalist Daniel Pearl, his violin was almost as essential as his notepad. In troubled hot spots around the world, he would whip out his instrument and instigate impromptu jam sessions with strangers, who quickly became friends — and sources. Music proved a universal language that transcended cultural boundaries and helped him land scoops.

Oct 8, 2024 | ajc.com | Candice Dyer |Kimberly Brock

Georgia’s low country has acquired a masterful new fabulist. Kimberly Brock’s sprawling third work of historical fiction earns its evocative title on every page. The marshland, in her hands, fairly thrums with stories that, tended with time and care, add up to heritage. With writing as lush as that generative pluff mud, Brock, who lives in Atlanta, brings the sepia-toned past to vivid life.

Aug 20, 2024 | gardenandgun.com | Candice Dyer |Liv Reilly

What's New “No kid is going to go hungry around me,” says Michael Meaders, who has quietly raised thousands of dollars for school lunches Sixteen thousand dollars in cash ain’t peanuts, but that is how much the little legume raised for low-income children who could not afford their school lunches in the mountains of North Georgia. Michael Meaders sells them, five bucks a bag, boiled to briny, slick perfection, at Papa Mike’s Peanut and Produce Stand in the town of Cleveland.

Jul 22, 2024 | ajc.com | Candice Dyer

When Maynard Jackson was elected Atlanta’s first Black mayor 50 years ago, revelers formed a long, conga line that boogied with no inhibitions down Peachtree Street. Pearl Cleage was there, and she was, as always, scribbling notes. “It was such an ecstatic time for the entire city when everything seemed possible,” she says. “Maynard brought this transformational energy to civic life.

Jun 17, 2024 | ajc.com | Candice Dyer

A few years ago, crime novelist Wanda Morris was absent-mindedly folding laundry with the news on in the background when a story caught her attention“A woman’s house and property were damaged by Hurricane Florence, but the woman couldn’t get any assistance from FEMA because she couldn’t prove she owned her home,” Morris recalls. “It had been handed down to her from her great-grandparents, and she had always lived there, but there had been no will or deed.