Hal Crowther is the author of An Infuriating American: The Incendiary Arts of H.L. Mencken (University of Iowa Press, 2014). His collection Gather at the River: Notes from the Post-Millennial South (Louisiana State University Press, 2005) was a finalist for the 2015 National Book Critics Circle Award in criticism. He is also the author of Unarmed But Dangerous (Longstreet Press, 1995) and Cathedrals of Kudzu: A Personal Landscape of the South (Louisiana State University Press, 2002), winner of the Lillian Smith Book Award (2001) for commentary and the Fellowship Prize from the Fellowship of Southern Writers. Crowther’s essays are regularly featured in magazines and newspapers like Granta and the New York Times, and appear in anthologies. His piece “The Joys of Obsolescence,” was published in Pushcart Prize XXXVIII. He was a finalist for the 2003 National Magazine Award for his essays on Southern culture and letters for the Oxford American.