I write to honor my roots and preserve the land, values, and legacy of rural life. Through personal stories, I invite you to remember what’s important and what we stand to lose.
A green metal rocking chair on the front porch. Whippoorwills’ and bullfrogs’ evening calls. Fireflies sparkling in the night sky. Sweet Betsy bushes and bridal wreath spirea.
These images defined my world.
I write so you can step into it and so that it doesn’t slip away.
My writing honors the life I knew as a child and now as an adult on a small family farm in the rural South. I speak for people, places, values, and traditions often overlooked. Through memoir and personal essays, I preserve stories shaped by the land, family, and a community that anchored me.
Nice to Meet You!
I’m Rhonda.
The daughter of generations of farmers, I grew up in fields, woods, wetlands, and the habitats they provide.
My memoir in progress is about a girl’s life on a family farm in rural North Carolina. I also write about the land and community, past and present, in my blog and essays.
I am ensuring the continuation of a working family farm in a changing neighborhood where housing developments are replacing farmland.
As a professor of English, I shared my passion for literature and now share my own writing. My time is split between Pennsylvania and North Carolina, which always calls me home.
The Heart of My Stories: What You’ll Find in My Work
When you step into my stories, you can expect to glimpse:
Bare feet and bright sun on your back
Sunday dinners and the smell of freshly-baked biscuits
Siblings working together in the fields
Land that asks everything but always gives something back
Memories tinged with sorrow and despair, joy and hope
Maybe you grew up with fields stretching farther than your eyes could see. Maybe you’re longing for a slower, sturdier kind of life. Or maybe you simply know that stories matter.
Whatever brings you here, I’m glad you’re here!
Join me on this journey.
Sign up to receive “Field Notes,” my messages containing personal stories, reflections on farm preservation, and the wisdom I’m gathering as steward of my family’s farm and its legacy.
Field Notes 
You’ll also receive “What We Lose When Farmland Disappears,” my perspective on the changing landscape and disappearing way of life in rural Southern communities.
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