Celia Rivenbark

Celia Rivenbark has built a career as an American humorist and syndicated columnist, using comic observations about Southern life, family customs, manners, and popular culture. Belle Weather belongs to the sequence of essay collections that established her conversational style and sharply timed commentary. The book’s longer subtitle promises changing conditions and scattered outbursts, an approach that suits pieces about domestic routines, public behavior, regional speech, and the everyday absurdities of modern life. Her newspaper career began in her native North Carolina, and she later wrote a weekly column for the Myrtle Beach Sun News. Her books also include We’re Just Like You, Only Prettier, Bless Your Heart, Tramp, and You Can’t Drink All Day If You Don’t Start in the Morning. We’re Just Like You, Only Prettier received a Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance nonfiction award and became a finalist for the James Thurber Prize for American Humor. Belle Weather shows how Rivenbark turns irritation into social comedy without abandoning affection for the communities she describes.