Lucy Maud Montgomery wrote Anne of Green Gables, a series I enjoyed because of its characters. Especially the main character, Anne, who is imaginative and creative. These are rare traits, and having found few people who have them in abundance in real life, I think I could relate to Anne when I first encountered the series.

The South is often stereotyped as being unintelligent. I wish the people doing the stereotyping were in the presence of the many Southern lawyers, doctors, and engineers when they were doing it. However, there does appear to be some lack in Southern culture, as a whole. The South is often suspicious of creativity.

There are a couple of geographic exceptions, Savannah and New Orleans both being known for their creativity. But there are also a very large number of Southern towns that are not Savannah or New Orleans.

There are also a number of Southern writers, which someone might also raise as a counter point.
In all fairness, this is true, though it’s not a profession I would suspect is strongly encouraged in the South. I think mostly Northerners read them anyway.

These exceptions do little to change the fact that sports are a more common topic of conversation than art or poetry in the average Southern discussion. While it might take some creative tactics to win a game, it’s not as open ended as literature. Sports has rules, with a clear winner and loser. However, there does appear to be one creative medium that the South does exceptionally well, and that is the field of humor.

Southerners often exaggerate. Or at least, you think they are exaggerating. The inherent difficulty of rural life, and the randomness of reality sometimes make it unclear. Perhaps that former school mate really did blow up his car to destroy the evidence before the cops could catch up. Maybe that fisherman really did get his lure back on the second cast, sans fish. It’s the South. Anything could happen. Memories often have a tinge of the surreal in Southern retellings. The very fact the audience is almost convinced that tall tale is true is often where the real humor lies.

Or the fact that a very real, and possibly quite traumatizing occurrence can be retold to appear so outlandish to the listener that they are convincing you must be joking can become a joke in itself.

I can see some of this exaggerated humor seeping into my own writing, albeit outside of news articles. If you had to choose a single creative outlet, humor isn’t a bad one. I still think more Southerners should read Montgomery though.