Southlands

Articles

It's happening: We're ready to launch Southlands Issue #1

1 week ago | southlands.substack.com | Boyce Upholt

After months of working with some of the most talented writers and photographers in the country, we're ready to show the world what Southern landscapes can teach us. The inaugural print issue of Southlands will explore how this region's relationship with nature—from prescribed burns in Florida to salt harvested from ancient oceans that once covered West Virginia—offers lessons the rest of the world desperately needs. Doug Bock Clark (Arthur L.
"Insects, crawdads, locusts-whatever"

2 weeks ago | southlands.substack.com | Boyce Upholt

We’re in the thick of things here at Southlands HQ—onboarding the editorial team, editing articles, picking out which shots from our excellent photographers to feature in the debut issue. So this week’s Southlander will be brief. Mostly we just want to turn the microphone to some other great storytellers who are worth your time. First up: our friends at the great podcast Outside/In, who just released an episode featuring Mississippi writer Kiese Laymon.
Field Guide: Combahee River

1 month ago | southlands.substack.com | Boyce Upholt

I get a lot of emails from PR reps, and usually I delete them on sight. But if you put the word “river” in the subject line, I just might perk up. It’s one such email that alerted me to a new exhibition at the Gibbes Museum of Art in Charleston about the Combahee River Raid. Before we get to that raid, let’s back up to talk about the Combahee—pronounced COME-bee—itself, and about the other two rivers, too, the Ashepoo and the Edisto, that make up the ACE Basin.
"...this world is the only one we've got..."

1 month ago | southlands.substack.com | Boyce Upholt

I’ve been reading Martha Park’s writing for years. So when I saw that her first book was forthcoming—World Without End: Essays on Apocalypse and After, it’s called—I knew I had to get my hands on a copy. And when I started reading an advanced copy a few months ago, I began thinking immediately, Wow, this is the kind of work I want to publish in Southlands.
Field guide: Lightning bugs

2 months ago | southlands.substack.com | Boyce Upholt

A reminder: the soft launch for the print version of Southlands is on—pre-sales are now live and merch is coming soon!Fireflies—or lightning bugs, as they’re more typically called here in the South—are, as writer Georgann Eubanks puts it, “shooting stars within reach, fireworks at eye level, sudden birthday candles coming out of pitch dark.” Most of all, she notes, they signal the changing seasons.
A national park.. city? On Chattanooga's new title

2 months ago | southlands.substack.com | Boyce Upholt

Programming note 1: Somehow, the newsletter this morning only went out to paid subscribers (despite the fact that—see below—I just turned off paid subscriptions). Trying again; apologies to those of you seeing this twice!Programming note 2: Last week, quietly, I paused all billing for paid subscribers to this newsletter.
A national park.. city? On Chattanooga's new title

2 months ago | southlands.substack.com | Boyce Upholt

Programming note: Last week, quietly, I paused all billing for paid subscribers to this newsletter. (Thanks to all of you for the support, BTW!) Because this mailing list is now transitioning to its new form: This is now “The Southlander,” the bi-weekly free newsletter that accompanies our paid print issues.And the first of those print issues is now available for pre-order! I’m calling this a soft launch; I’ll make a more formal announcement soon.
"The fabulous ordinary [is] still out there"

2 months ago | southlands.substack.com | Boyce Upholt

I spent the past few weeks assigning writers for the inaugural issue of Southlands—and it’s a really phenomenal line-up. I’m excited to share it soon. The process put hunting and fishing on my mind. I knew I had to get both into the issue, in part because hunting and fishing are some of the more prominent ways that Southerners get out in nature.
The good fight

Mar 4, 2025 | southlands.substack.com | Boyce Upholt

Our biweekly publication schedule is woefully slow compared to today's news cycle. I tried writing this before my vacation last week but knew anything I wrote would be outdated by Tuesday morning. So: I’ll keep this brief. As a Southlands reader, you probably know already about the devastating job cuts at the National Park Service. Here in the South, our relatively scarce bits of public land are all the more precious for that scarcity.
The end of Outside

Feb 18, 2025 | southlands.substack.com | Boyce Upholt

For a couple of years in my mid-20s—an era when I dreamed of being a writer but did not know how—I woke up every morning and read two longform magazine stories. It’s part of how I learned this work. Often enough, the stories came from the pages of Outside—and so, naturally, one of my ambitions became to publish my own adventure yarn in that august magazine. I came close, thanks to this online-only essay about the Bass Pro Shop inside the glass pyramid in downtown Memphis.