About

This website takes off from my nonfiction book, Swampitude: Escapes with the Congaree, which was published in late May of 2023. Above is one of several photos by Peggy Peattie used in the book. Collaborating with me in the early years of the writing (the late 1990’s), she is a fine and intrepid photojournalist whose own book, Down in Dixie, a photo-essay on the controversy surrounding the confederate flag, steps into some of the same sticky history as mine.

Swampitude was a finalist for the River Teeth Literary Nonfiction Book Prize. The book is a song of praise for swamps, a meditation on the nature of this terrain, its meaning, its mystery, its fearfulness, its shelter, and its healing power. There is a focus on the only swamp–the Congaree in the center of South Carolina–that has become a national park. The significance of its place and its designation merits a wide-ranging book.

I am also an award-winning poet who chose to spend some time in the swamp with prose. I’ve published five books of poetry, most recently You Were Born One Time, which won the SC Poetry Archives Book Prize. Some poems should appear here from time to time, along with a little “poetic prose.”

I can be contacted at qman@islc.net. Thanks for your interest.

Quitman Marshall

Praise for Swampitude:

“The language is gorgeous, word by word, sentence by sentence.” –Valerie Sayers

“The best book I’ve read in years.”–Jane Zenger