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"Shoe Burnin'" Collects Stories of Southern Soles

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'Shoe Burnin'' collects stories from over a dozen authors.

It started one night with a box of shoes. 

Some Alabama artists ran out of firewood and, they surmised, a box of shoes seemed an appropriate enough substitute for traditional kindling. So began the first shoe burning — a well-kept Southern literary tradition of telling stories for each sole burned.  

In Shoe Burnin': Stories of Southern Soul over a dozen authors and songwriters collected their tales in a combination of musical and literary sojourns.

KUT's David Brown spoke with Shari Smith and Chuck Cannon, two writers who contributed to the book.

David entered radio journalism thanks to a love of storytelling, an obsession with news, and a desire to keep his hair long and play in rock bands. An inveterate political junkie with a passion for pop culture and the romance of radio, David has reported from bases in Washington, London, Los Angeles, and Boston for Monitor Radio and for NPR, and has anchored in-depth public radio documentaries from India, Brazil, and points across the United States and Europe. He is, perhaps, known most widely for his work as host of public radio's Marketplace. Fulfilling a lifelong dream of moving to Texas full-time in 2005, Brown joined the staff of KUT, launching the award-winning cultural journalism unit "Texas Music Matters."
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