Riley Moran is a Floridian, a student at Tulane University, and the recipient of the 2020-21 English Department Graduating Senior Retreat at A Studio in the Woods. Her senior thesis is on the subversive political strategies of women writing the Southern Gothic. She likes front porches, cobblers, and going to school. She dislikes okra, writing cover letters, and the tendency to dismiss Southern culture and politics as backward and irreparable, ignoring the marginalized people who work every day to make (and write!) a better South. Moran used her residency to work on a story about the group of very young, very impressionable political strategists who worked on the 1968 George Wallace presidential campaign. It’s told in verse, stylistically reminiscent of ballads and epics, but less serious, and battles aren’t about combat, but the campaign trail. It’s called Bright Young Swamp People.