Category Archives: Writers

S9E3 Podcast: Tracking Hernando De Soto Through Georgia

Did Hernando De Soto travel near what is now DeSoto Falls in North Georgia? Or Desoto, Georgia, in Sumter County? Why don’t we know where he went and why is the evidence so hard to find? Stan’s guest this week is Dennis Blanton, professor of anthropology at James Madison University, author of Conquistador’s Wake: Tracking the Legacy of Hernando De Soto in the Indigenous Southeast (UGA Press, 2020). Dr. Blanton discusses the myths and realities of De Soto’s 16th-century expedition, based on his years of painstaking archaeological research—and how his current finds in southwest Georgia may re-define what we know about the infamous Conquistador’s entrada.

S9E2 Podcast: The 10th Inning with Mark Bradley

Stan’s guest this week is long-time Atlanta Journal-Constitution sports columnist Mark Bradley, who retired from the AJC last December after 46 years as a sports journalist. Mark shares some of his favorite moments in Georgia sports history across nearly five decades, including the joys of two Braves World Series championships, the crushing Falcons Super Bowl loss, as well as the ups and downs of tight deadlines, covering lousy teams, and why the current Braves are painful to watch.

S9E1 Podcast: Summer School

Stan opens Season 9 of Off the Deaton Path talking about his summer reading (so far)—books by Nina Stibbe, Jane Gardam, Leah Hager Cohen, Helene Hanff, James Hilton, Ferrol Sams—short thoughts on the Braves lousy season (so far), a sneak peek at upcoming podcasts, and AJC political writer Jim Galloway on the 1956 Georgia state flag in the summer GHQ.

S8E22 Podcast: The First Climate Scientist? Benjamin Franklin and the Franklin Stove

Stan’s guest this week is Harvard historian Joyce Chaplin, who discusses her new book, The Franklin Stove: An Unintended American Revolution (Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2025). Was Ben Franklin the first climate scientist? The Franklin stove became one of the Revolutionary era’s most iconic consumer products, spreading from Pennsylvania to Italy, and beyond. It was also a hypothesis. Armed with science, Franklin proposed to invent his way out of a climate crisis: a period of global cooling known as the Little Ice Age, when unusually bitter winters brought life to a standstill. He believed that his stove could provide snug indoor comfort despite another, related crisis: a shortage of wood caused by widespread deforestation. Joyce Chaplin demonstrates that it’s not so easy to engineer our way out of a climate crisis, an ongoing challenge as old as the United States itself.

S8E20 Podcast: Remember Us: American Sacrifice, Dutch Freedom, and a Forever Promise Forged in World War II

May 8, 2025, marks the 80th anniversary of V-E Day, the Allied victory in Europe over Nazi Germany. Stan’s guest this week is acclaimed author Robert Edsel, talking about his new book, Remember Us, the extraordinary story of the liberation of the Dutch people and the creation of the American Netherlands Cemetery. It is a riveting account of freedom, sacrifice, and eternal gratitude. Edsel is the author of The Monuments Men, and is recognized as one of the world’s foremost advocates for art preservation and the recovery of cultural treasures missing since World War II.