About

People need to be heard and know their lives matter. I listen to tell their stories and give them a voice. Stories help us find common ground, breaking down invisible walls that keep us from understanding each other.

I grew up in Yazoo City, Mississippi, and now live with my husband, John, on a little farm outside of Fairhope, Alabama. The Mississippi Delta and Mobile, the Birthplace of Mardi Gras, are my favorite places for pictures and stories, but I go everywhere for my blog, Our Southern Souls (now also two books). The Souls project began over ten years ago, inspired by my experience writing about bus riders in Mobile, Alabama. I spent months on the buses, listening to the everyday tales of people who rely on public transportation for all aspects of their lives.

I write stories for Lagniappe newspaper, Mobile Bay Magazine, and report for Alabama Public Radio and Spanning Alabama. I’m also the producer for Mobile Bay Radio and the Dealing the Mobile Sound podcast.

My series about domestic violence, From Hell to Hope, won first place in feature writing in 2019 from the Alabama Press Association. The next year, my series about sex trafficking, Sexual Slavery in South Alabama, won the 2020 William H. Johnson Print Journalism Award from the Medical Association for the State of Alabama and second place in feature writing in the Green Eyeshade Awards, recognizing excellence in journalism across the Southeast.

I’m part of the APR team that won a national Sigma Delta Chi Award from the Society of Professional Journalists for a documentary on the long-term impact of the BP oil spill, and two national first-place awards from the Public Media Journalists Association for our investigative series Bad Chemistry. I also won the 2024 Nappie for Best Baldwinian Right Now.

People and their stories inspire hope in a crazy world. My mission is to help them tell those stories while understanding a little more of my own life along the way.

(Photographs by Gary Brady and Toni Riales)