The Bitter Southerner, the online magazine with the intriguingly acrid name, asked me to write about the back story of "The Class of '65" and how the book has been received. My piece appears in the July 14 issue (linked below). The Bitter Southerner started a couple of years ago as the brainchild of veteran Atlanta journalist Chuck Reece and a few of his friends. The name originally referred to their enthusiasm for Southern spirits and food, but it quickly took on a broader meaning as they redirected the magazine toward in-depth stories about life and culture in the region -- stories like the tale of race, religion and reconciliation found in my book. Photographer Aaron Coury accompanied Greg Wittkamper and me to Americus, Ga., when the book came out last spring and took some evocative pictures of Greg at his high school and at Koinonia, the communal farm where he grew up. As we revisited the old haunts, there were moments that moved us to tears. While our story is not meant to engender bitterness -- quite the opposite -- some of the memories we summoned from the past are bitter indeed.