Rules for the Southern Rulebreaker: Missteps and Lessons Learned

by Katherine Snow Smith

Overview

Southern women are inundated with rules starting early—from always wearing sensible shoes to never talking about death to the dying, and certainly not relying on song lyrics for marriage therapy.

Nevertheless, Katherine Snow Smith keeps doing things like falling off her high heels onto President Barack Obama, gaining dubious status as the middle school “lice mom,” and finding confirmation in the lyrics of Miranda Lambert after her twenty-four-year marriage ends. Somehow, despite never meaning to defy Southern expectations for parenting, marriage, work, and friendship, Smith has found herself doing just that for over four decades. Luckily for everyone, the outcome of these “broken rules” is this collection of refreshing stories, filled with vulnerability, humor, and insight, sharing how she received lifelong advice from a sixth-grade correspondence with an Oscar-winning actress, convinced a terminally ill friend to write good-bye letters, and won the mother of all “don’t give up” lectures by finishing a road race last (as the pizza boxes were thrown away).

Rules for the Southern Rule Breaker will resonate with every woman, southern or not, who has a tendency to wander down the hazy side roads and realizes the rewards that come from listening to the pull in one’s heart over the voice in one’s head.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781631528583
Publisher:	She Writes Press
Publication date:	07/21/2020
Pages:	176
Sales rank:	1,159,180
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Katherine Snow Smith has lived throughout the South as a newspaper reporter, magazine editor, public relations executive, daughter, sister, mother, wife, divorcee, and friend. She graduated from the Universityof North Carolina at Chapel Hill and started her journalism career covering three miniscule towns in South Carolina. After a stint covering business in Charlotte, NC, she got married, moved to Florida, and started a twenty-year career at the Tampa Bay Times—first covering business, and then, after having a baby, creating a parenting column, Rookie Mom, for the paper. Now—three kids, two careers, and one divorce later—she’s embracing the fact that life has many chapters.

Table of Contents

1 Always Wear Sensible Shoes 1

2 Children Require Age-Appropriate Entertainment 7

3 Know Your Limitations 13

4 Don't Major in Journalism 19

5 Don't Move to Podunk 27

6 Don't Talk to Strangers 33

7 Never Arrive at the Funeral Home Late 41

8 Don't Bring Your Problems to Work 47

9 Send Your Kids to the Best School in Town 55

10 No Autographs Please 61

11 Family Secrets Aren't Meant to Be Shared 67

12 A Minute on the Lips, Forever on the Hips 73

13 Your Children Always Come First 79

14 Ice, Elevate, and Stay Off of It 87

15 Don't Move Without a Job 97

16 Don't Talk About Death to the Dying 103

17 Sending Fan Mail is Tacky 109

18 Never Get a Tattoo 115

19 Miranda Lambert is Not a Licensed Therapist 127

20 Snoopers Never Prosper 135

21 Always Know Your Date's Pedigree 143

22 Never Let Them See Your Scars 151

Editorial Reviews

2020 CIBA Hearten Book Awards 1st Place Winner

“Katherine Snow Smith’s sure voice, deft pen, hilarious sense of humor and always original slant on things offer the reader much to enjoy in these delightful essays—and also much to identify with, especially for another Southern girl. Her delightful, humorous accounts always convey a deeper truth—about self-image, especially for women; about raising children; about an early death in the family and the later loss of a friend; about politics and belief—about life itself. Snow Smith’s own lifetime of writing and observant living is distilled in this kind, original, and compulsively readable book.”

—Lee Smith, author of Fair and Tender Ladies and winner of the Robert Penn Warren Award for Fiction and the Southern Book Critics Circle Award

“Katherine’s ability to observe her life from the balcony while it plays out on stage is a gift to her readers. Her keen perspective—which is unapologetically southern and chock-full of grit, forgiveness, and humor—reminds us that we all aspire to love well and to laugh until our face hurts.”
—Charla Muller, author of Pretty Takes Practice: A Southern Woman’s Search for the Real Meaning of Beauty

“Rules for the Southern Rulebreaker is a warm, genuine memoir about living fully beyond the bounds of others’ expectations.”
—Foreword Reviews

“Smith writes of going her own way with humor and honesty, encouraging readers not to take themselves too seriously and find value in friends and family. Readers of essays from Sloane Crosley, Samantha Irby, or Bailey White will laugh out loud.”
—Booklist

From the Publisher