Georgialina on My Mind

Tom Poland, a native Southerner, has made it his mission to write about and preserve the South through stories. His main subject? His native land of “Georgialina,” his name for a region encompassing Georgia and South Carolina. Join him at the Hanahan Library on Thursday, June 29th, at 6:30 pm for a dual talk and presentation on Classic Carolina Road Trips and Georgialina, A Southland as We Knew It. This program is made possible through a grant from the South Carolina Humanities Council.

Poland started writing back in highschool. When a potential career in college football didn’t work out, he switched to journalism at the University of Georgia. “Writing was all I ever liked to be honest,” said Poland. “Well, that and photography.”

Poland has since had a busy career. “My first writing position was as a scriptwriter/cinematographer making natural history documentaries,” he explained. “Since then I’ve written 12 books, about 1,500 magazine features, and a play for Georgia’s official folk life drama, Swamp Gravy. I write columns for 17 newspapers and journals as well.”

Poland not only writes, but has taught others how to write. For nineteen years, he worked as an adjunct professor for the University of South Carolina’s College of Mass Information and Library Studies.

What’s next on Poland’s to-do list? “Right now I am wrapping up a book on Carolina bays, the elliptical depressions that no one can explain how they formed,” he said. “They’re rich repositories of wildlife. The USC Press will publish it. Then I will complete a book on the back roads of SC for the History Press in Charleston.”

For more information about Tom Poland, visit his website here.