Category: Featured

On Oct. 8, Margarett Mitchell will be inducted into the Atlanta Press Club Hall of Fame. Obviously here at PrettySouthern.com we’re raving fan’s of Mitchell’s work and our first Southern media maven. For those folks who don’t know, the best storyline of Gone With the Wind is neither about Scarlett O’Hara nor Rhett Butler — it’s the author Margaret Mitchell’s very own life story.

Born in Atlanta on Nov. 8, 1900, Margaret Mitchell spent her childhood listening to the war stories of Confederate veterans. They told her everything about the Civil War except that the South had lost. She found that out when she was 10 years old.

Before leaving for Smith College in 1918, Mitchell fell in love With Lieutenant Clifford Henry, a Harvard undergraduate training for active duty in World War I at Camp Gordon in Atlanta. In 1919, shortly after she learned Henry had been killed in action in France, her mother became ill and Margaret rushed home. She did not make it back in time to see her mother, and she stayed on to take care of her father and brother.

Mitchell had many suitors, but Red Upshaw and John Marsh came to the fore as serious potential husbands. She got a job as the first woman to cover hard news for The Atlanta Journal, and married Upshaw. The marriage was short – Upshaw was a bootlegger and alcoholic. John Marsh, her other serious suitor, returned. They married and remained so until her death.

Mitchell was forced to quit her job at The Atlanta Journal because of problems With her ankles and feet. Bedridden, she read voraciously and began work on what her friends called ‘the great American novel.’

She showed the finished manuscript, all 1,037 pages of it, to a visiting New York publisher, and on June 10, 1936, Gone With the Wind was published.

By October of that year, Gone With the Wind had sold one million copies, and David O. Selznick bought the rights for $50,000. At the time, it was the highest price ever paid by Hollywood for the rights to a first novel.

Margaret Mitchell won the Pulitzer Prize in 1937. In 1939, Atlanta hosted the premier of one of the most popular movies of all time, Gone With the Wind, starring Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh.

On Aug. 11, 1949, while crossing Peachtree and 13th streets close to her home, Margaret Mitchell was struck by an off-duty cab driver, and died five days later. She was buried in Atlanta’s Oakland Cemetery with the rest of her family.

Many years earlier, in an interview with her publisher, she was asked what  Gone With the Wind was about. She said ‘If the novel has a theme it is that of survival. What makes some people come through catastrophes and others, apparently, just as able, strong and brave go under?

“It happens in every upheaval. Some people survive – others don’t. What qualities are in those who fight their way thought triumphantly that are lacking in those that go under. I only know that survivors used to call that quality ‘gumption.’

“So I wrote about people who had gumption and people who didn’t.” (1936)

Gumption a.k.a. spirited initiative and resourcefulness. Much like her heroine, Scarlett O’Hara, Margaret Mitchell had gumption in spades.

Aaron Chewning is a brilliant photographer, media maven, Southern gentleman, and soon-to-be viral video sensation. He teamed up with Braves catcher, Javy Lopez, to create a music video “Baselines” spoofing Robin Thicke’s popular “Blurred Lines”. The video celebrates the Braves clinching the National League East pennant and was aired for the first time at Turner Field on Sept. 23.

Y’all can spot the lovely ladies from the Braves’ Tomahawk team, mascot Homer (he even classed it up to put on a suit for the occasion), and rapper Austin Miles also has a cameo. Watch “Baselines” below.

You can also book Aaron for photography/videographer services for your next event! He and his sister, Callie, run Achor & Eden, and this isn’t their first video to go viral. Earlier this year, they captured an entire wedding party taking a spill into a lake! Why not also watch this Jimmy John Shark video here and see what made it viral!

Two years and several slices of pie ago, a little place called Pie Shop opened in Atlanta. The very first Pie Shop is nestled in the basement of a strip mall in the heart of Buckhead’s bar district on Roswell Road, but the place has never seemed anything but warm. Its owner, Mims Bledsoe, is usually around serving up slices with a smile or packaging up pies in pretty boxes with Pie Shop branded ribbon.

“We had great word of mouth when we first opened,” Mims said. “We were embraced by Buckhead because we brought something different to the table. I don’t know if we would’ve survived anywhere else. It’s a great location to sustain a business long term. We got a lot of great foodie attention in the beginning, but it’s the community who keeps coming back.”

And who wouldn’t want to keep coming back to Pie Shop for more sweet goodness? Pie Shop can custom make a pie with 24 hours notice. The most popular flavors are coconut cream, chocolate ganache, and classic apple. Mims also touts blackberry, milk and cookies, blueberry rhubarb, and maple chess as being some of her favorite pies. Menus are seasonal and change about every two months allowing the use of fresh ingredients in these classic concoctions. During the holidays, Mims said she’ll pull “all-nighters pureeing pumpkin”. She’s also creating jobs one pie at a time, with lots of part time help for when her kitchen gets busy with orders.

Pie Shop is now calling upon its loyal following of pie lovers to help open a second location. Though Mims can’t say specifically which buildings, she’s been in talks with several landlords in Virginia-Highlands, Decatur, and Inman Park. “The vibrancy of any of these neighborhoods would be an ideal match for Pie Shop’s second location,” she said. Help show Pie Shop a bit of love, goodness, and pie for all of Atlanta by donating now to her Kickstarter campaign.

The goal is to raise $35,000 by Oct. 4, and various levels of pledges will earn rewards. For example, a $25 donation warrants an invitation to an exclusive happy hour at Pie Shop where patrons can BYOB and stuff their faces with pie. A $35 donation earns you a free pie of your choice, $50 includes Pie Shop swag and apparel (only available through Kickstarter), $85 grants admission to a Pie Shop baking class, $150 gets y’all into the preview party for when Pie Shop opens their awesome second location, and a $240 donation buys you an annual Pie Shop subscription where a different pie is shipped to your house each month. There options range from $1 to $5,000, so make your pledge now y’all! Here’s their Kickstarter video, featuring yours truly from @Pretty_Southern.

So, there’s a little thing kicking off tonight called college football. Are you ready? Lord knows I am.

I just hope my heart is ready, too.

After a night of bluegrass and brews last Friday, I was sitting on the screen porch of my boyfriend Jake’s apartment with his roommate and one of his best friends, who was in town from Charlotte. The air was thick and damp, with the rain tapping on the trees surrounding us and the tunes coming out of Jake’s phone just low enough to let us have a deep, passionate and pensive conversation about most true Southerners’ favorite topic: college football. We talked about everything from Ohio State’s laughable schedule to the SEC to what we expected for our teams this year.

But at one point, as the fellas from Florida State sat back and spoke calmly about their new players and games they would play this season, I felt my blood pressure rising, my heart thumping and that pit in my stomach start to grow into the volleyball-size it felt the morning of Dec. 1, 2012, all over again. Because while they, like anyone else, would love nothing more than to see Jimbo raise that glass football in January, I would argue that there is no group of fans wanting to claim the title “National Champs” more than the Dawgs.

“It truly is the most glorious and the most heartbreaking thing, all in one, to be a Georgia fan,” I told them. Just saying those words made me sigh, and made me sigh again as I wrote them because of the weight of truth that they carry.

Georgia has been playing football for well over a century, since it took the field in the first game ever played in the Deep South against Mercer University on Jan. 30, 1892. In 121 years of pigskin play, Georgia has won one National Championship, beating Notre Dame in 1980 with the almighty Herschel. (Although, we were given the title of National Champions four more times, dating back to 1927, but the designation was much less decisive and formal than it is now.)

In my 28 years of being a Dawg, I have never seen the Dawgs go “all the way.” My love for everything Athens and UGA has never faltered, but my heart seems to be worn out by the end of every season. Still, there’s no doubt we’ve been damn good Dawgs. We’ve won coveted SEC Championships, BCS bowls, have a chart-topping 46 Dawgs in the NFL right now and pretty much would have killed Notre Lame in the National Championship, too, if it wasn’t for those flippin’ five yards. Damn it’s hard on the heart to be a Dawg. But it’s the best thing in the world to be a Dawg, too.

So as the men talked about the dreams they had for their Noles this season, I thought to myself that they have experienced multiple national championships in their lifetimes. They have felt the glorious feeling it must be to spend those nine months in the offseason knowing you won everything that everyone else wanted. And to have at least one night where you can watch your guys dance in confetti on the field and know you finally won it all.

I haven’t. The guys taking the field in the red and black on Saturday haven’t, either. That’s why it matters (and hurts) so much.

But after hearing, seeing and reliving “five yards from the National Championship” for far too long, I am leaving the crushing blows and overall pride of last season behind me. I will be barking at the television in my red and black on Saturday as we take on Dabo and the Clemson Tigers. We WOULD have to play the No. 8 team in the country right off the bat. Lord, I need a fan! This is a big year for us and we very well could be five yards closer to the National Championship come December. I would put my heart on the line any day for that.

Because, no matter what, there’s still no better feeling than when someone asks me if I went to a certain school and I can smile and say, “No. I’m a Georgia girl!”

Katy Ruth Camp is a professional writer living in Smyrna, Ga. Katy Ruth grew up in a small town in north Georgia and graduated from the University of Georgia with degrees in journalism and literature. During college, she worked as a writer and game day assistant for the UGA Athletic Association. After college, she hosted a local media outlet’s high school football show for three seasons and won first place from the Georgia Sports Writers Association for football reporting. Her father, John Camp, was a UGA football letterman and high school football coach in Georgia for over 30 years. Read more on Pigskin Peaches blog, like them on Facebook, follow on Twitter, and check back weekly on PrettySouthern.com.