Dope With Lime

“Dope with Lime” Podcast

Named after Lillian E. Smith’s column that she wrote in the pages of the journal that she co-edited with her partner Paula Snelling from 1936- 1945, “Dope with Lime” showcases interviews with scholars, artists, readers, and more.

Colloquially, dope with lime referred to cutting the sweetness of CocaCola with lime juice. In her bloglike columns, Smith used biting satire to comment on Southern life and letters. The podcast carries on the conversational nature of Smith’s editorials by having discussions about wide-ranging topics from teaching Smith in Europe to artist residencies at the center.

The first six episodes of “Dope with Lime” provide unique perspectives on Smith and the work being done at the LES Center. We talk with Michał Choiński about his trip to the LES Center last fall and about teaching Smith in Poland. With Julie Buckner Armstrong, we discuss her current book project and her residency at the LES Center. With Andrew Beck Grace, we speak about how Smith’s Killers of the Dream impacted and informed the NPR podcast White Lies which he co-hosted with Chip Brantley.

We also speak with Ben Railton about discovering Smith and presenting at last October’s symposium, with Eileen Boris, about the reference to Smith’s Strange Fruit in Chester Himes If He Hollers Let Him Go (1945), and with Nicole Robinson about her work as a narrative medicine coordinator and writing at the center.

We are currently organizing season two of “Dope with Lime,” which we hope to premier sometime this fall. Until then, check out season one on SoundCloud, iTunes, or where ever you get your podcasts.

The “Dope with Lime” logo was designed by Piedmont College student, Jenna Wendell, Class of 2021.

Sarah Higinbotham

Lillian E. Smith Writer-in-Service Award

Dr. Sarah Higinbotham is the 2020 recipient of the Lillian E. Smith

Writer-in-Service Award. Higinbotham co-founded and co-directs Common Good Atlanta, an initiative that provides accredited college courses in men’s and women’s prisons throughout Georgia. Founded in 2008, Common Good Atlanta works in four Georgia prisons four days a week, and has a waiting list for students and volunteers. Higinbotham has worked with some of her students at Emory to extend Shakespeare studies to combat veterans through “The Feast of Crispian.” She has also spoken to policymakers, judges, and media on the ways that incarceration affects not just those who are incarcerated but also their families and children. About her pedagogy and work, Higinbotham said, “When teaching the humanities — either within prisons or without — I find authors from William Shakespeare to Franz Kafka asking us to consider, ‘What does it mean to live in a community with others? What are my obligations?’ So immersion in the humanities contributes to a greater sense of citizenship, a deepened ability to emphasize, and a broader understanding of myself. At the core of the study of humanities, then, is human dignity. I am always seeking to maintain dignity as a throughline in my teaching, writing, and in my life.”

Higinbotham will receive a $500 honorarium, a $500 travel stipend, and a two-week residency at the Center. This award is sponsored annually by a generous gift by Sue Ellen Lovejoy, a member of the LES Center Advisory Board. It is open to U.S. residents working to advance writing through public service careers or volunteer work. Eligible activities include, but are not limited to, arts education, literacy instruction, prison arts and education, English as a second language instruction, art-related therapies, etc. While the work of writing instructors and volunteers is vital to the community, the demands often limit personal writing time. This award provides an opportunity for those writers who, like Lillian E. Smith, recognize “the power of the arts to transform the lives of all human beings.” Congratulations, Sarah Higinbotham.