Author Archives: Deborah Fagan Carpenter

About Deborah Fagan Carpenter

The creative and professional life of Deborah Fagan Carpenter has taken many directions: visual merchandiser, decorator, potter, sculptor, modern expressionist painter, photographer, and freelance feature writer. As Contributing Editor at PorchScene, her contributions are fueled by her love of all things beautiful, interesting, edible, and Southern.

This Week’s Southernism, Tuesday, September 6, 2022

Posted on September 6, 2022 by Deborah Fagan Carpenter

  “Louisiana in September was like an obscene phone call from nature. The air—moist, sultry, secretive, and far from fresh—felt as if it were being exhaled into one’s face. Sometimes it even sounded like heavy breathing.” —Tom Robbins Photo: Deborah … Continue reading →

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This Week’s Southernism, Monday, August 29, 2022

Posted on August 29, 2022 by Deborah Fagan Carpenter

“Ah, summer, what power you have to make us suffer and like it” —Russell Baker Photo: Deborah Fagan Carpenter

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This Week’s Southernism, Monday, August 22, 2022

Posted on August 22, 2022 by Deborah Fagan Carpenter

“When people make a contract with the devil and give him an air-conditioned office to work in, he doesn’t go back home easily.”   ― James Lee Burke, In the Electric Mist with Confederate Dead     Photo: Deborah Fagan … Continue reading →

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This Week’s Southernism, Tuesday, July 26, 2022

Posted on July 26, 2022 by Deborah Fagan Carpenter

“I drifted into a summer nap under the hot shade of July, serenaded by a cicada lullaby, to drowsy warm dreams of distant thunder.” —Terri Guillemets Photo: Deborah Fagan Carpenter

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This Week’s Southernism, Monday, July 18, 2022

Posted on July 18, 2022 by Deborah Fagan Carpenter

“It is so hot in the South tonight, the mosquitoes are carrying canteens.”  —Tom Petty Photo: Deborah Fagan Carpenter

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This Week’s Southernism, Monday, July 11, 2022

Posted on July 11, 2022 by Deborah Fagan Carpenter

“I’m sorry for the things I said when it was winter.” —Unknown Photo: Deborah Fagan Carpenter

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This Week’s Southernism, Monday, June 27, 2022

Posted on June 27, 2022 by Deborah Fagan Carpenter

  “With a stunted oak tree for shelter and a never-ending view, I am hidden. No one knows where I am. The nine-year-old’s thrill of the hideout under the hydrangea comes back: My mother is calling me and I am … Continue reading →

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Let’s Cook Something Southern!

Posted on June 22, 2022 by Deborah Fagan Carpenter

Let’s Cook Something Southern! Our South Facin’ Cook, Patsy R. Brumfield has been under the weather of late, and she’s also recently relocated and is still settling in, so I’m pinch-hitting on the “food scene.” Hopefully, Patsy will be back … Continue reading →

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This Week’s Southernism, Monday, June 20, 2022

Posted on June 20, 2022 by Deborah Fagan Carpenter

  “As a Bolling in Feliciana Parish, I became accustomed to sitting on the porch in the dark and talking of the size of the universe and the treachery of men; as a Smith on the Gulf Coast I have … Continue reading →

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This Week’s Southernism, Tuesday, June 7, 2022

Posted on June 7, 2022 by Deborah Fagan Carpenter

I want to lay up like that, to float unstructured, without ambition or anxiety. I want to inhabit my life like a porch. —Rebecca Wells Photo: Deborah Fagan Carpenter  

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