My name is Lewis Abrey Maynard and I am a 22 year old from Starkville, Mississippi. This collection of short stories and reflections will not all be solely about Mississippi, but most will be shaped by my life experiences and my environment growing up in the south. Some stories will reflect my fear as a child after 9/11, some will focus on coming-of-age in the south, some will focus on discrimination, some will reflect on the south’s past and its relation to the present, and some will hopefully just be fun stories to read. Readers can help shape the draft by giving advice for revision, telling me what each story does well and what falls flat, and by just saying whether or not, based on the samples I provide, you would buy the collection to read the stories not offered as samples.