July 2019

By Ash Alder Snapshots from July are salt-laced and dreamy. Children skipping through sprinklers on the front lawn. Baskets of ripe peaches, still warm from the sun. Tree houses and tackle boxes. [...]

Coming of Age One day, I knew in my head, I wanted to be one of them By Billy Hirschen I can still feel the knot in the pit of my stomach when I noticed it for the first time. Arnie couldn’t [...]

The Road to Happiness It’s an upward climb filled with twists and turns, but joy is in the journey By Jim Dodson A dear friend phoned the other day just to say hello, a gifted young poet I hired [...]

Reminders  A kind of grief By Susan S. Kelly This is the month that I turn 65. I suspect I’ll have a breakdown. I don’t put much store by birthdays typically. As a child, a July birthday meant [...]

The 40-year journey to protect North Carolina’s ancient cypress forest By Virginia Holman   •   Photographs By Dan Griffin & Charlie Peek The Old Forest On May 9, 2019, in the rural [...]

Ferlinghetti’s Torrent of Words Little Boy offers little wisdom By Stephen E. Smith Here’s the theory: If a writer drags his audience into unknown intellectual territory — even if the journey’s [...]

A Born Storyteller At Dixie Grill, Wills Maxwell makes comedy real By Wiley Cash   •   Photographs by Mallory Cash Wilmington-based comedian Wills Maxwell routinely opens his sets with a joke [...]

Before and After A summer house at Wrightsville Beach overlooking Banks Channel gets a stylish makeover from designer Liz Carroll By William Irvine   •   Photographs By Rick Ricozzi There is a [...]

Ruby-Throated Hummingbird Beauty on the wing By Susan Campbell The true herald of spring along the Carolina coast might well be the first male ruby-throated hummingbird, which appears in early [...]

Grins and Giggles Cancerians bring light and light-heartedness to the darkness By Astrid Stellanova A whole lot of July Star Children are born with a funny streak, and live for shenanigans. One [...]