Find inspiration in rising tides, sweet tea, and the pulse of city streets
Along the Water’s Edge (sepia-toned, limited-edition, black-and-white print, 2009) by Ben Ham, benhamimages.com
Secret Places
Finding wonder and welcome in Charleston’s hidden alleys
Written by Stephanie Hunt
I landed in Charleston on July 1, 1993—the first day of the city’s hottest July since 1895. My husband, infant daughter, and I felt warmly welcomed, literally, by 17 days of 100-plus mercury. So much for Southern hospitality. It’s a blur now, mostly because my sunglasses were constantly fogged up from walking out of our hyper-chilled apartment into the scorching summer soup....>>READ MORE
Life by Tides
Paying attention to the rise and fall—and what the water brings
Written by Sandy Lang
In a sailboat we called the Eel Pye, we’d drifted right up to a dozen or more dolphins that were in a swirl, almost a frenzy, of fishing. It was a summer afternoon on the Fort Johnson side of the harbor, where the water was mixing with a changing tide. It was one of those scenes that gets seared in memory, a little movie to be played later—the dolphins’ slippery gray backs rising over and over, twisting in water that popped with a school of silvery fish....>>READ MORE
Sweet Tea
The congenial power of the South’s favorite cool, sugary drink
Written by Renae Brabham
Sweet tea—I love everything about it, except the taste. What? you ask. A Southerner who doesn’t like sweet tea? Surely, you jest. Nope, that’s the God’s-honest truth, but I do truly appreciate what the drink represents in my beloved South: hospitality....>>READ MORE
Pluff Mud
Ahh, the pungent smell of home
Written by Buff Ross
In the early-’90s after graduating from college, I moved to Salt Lake City, Utah, seeking mountains, snow, and access to the desert. It couldn’t have been a more disparate topography from the Lowcountry of my youth. For a variety of reasons, I missed my first Thanksgiving and Christmas back in the South, and before I realized it, a year and a half had passed since I had been home. That continues to be my longest contiguous absence from Charleston without at least a visit....>>READ MORE
The Pulse
A poem about Charleston by the city’s first poet laureate
Written by Marcus Amaker
Where the sidewalks scream
on Saturday nights
and the corners rotate
budding musicians
with skin-tight dreams...>>READ MORE
Web Extra - Love Charleston? Read on. We’ve gathered 20 years of personal essays about Lowcountry life.