Author, TrueSouth TV host John T. Edge coming to Columbia for event. Here’s when
In his new memoir, John T. Edge comes face to face with the realities of his childhood, his home in the South and his time as a writer, author and TV host.
And this weekend he’ll come face to face with local residents at an event in Columbia.
Edge, the longtime author, commentator, and host and writer of the SEC Network’s Emmy Award-winning show TrueSouth, has just published his memoir, “House of Smoke.” He is set to appear at a book talk and signing at 3 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 28 at All Good Books on Harden Street in Columbia’s Five Points. The event will feature, among other things, a conversation between Edge and Cyberwoven CEO Ben Rex.
Raised in the small town of Clinton, Georgia, Edge has, for decades, trained his eye and his pen on the rhythms and intricacies of the South, particularly the ways in which food traditions help tell the real stories of the region.
It’s highlighted in books such as “The Potlikker Papers,” and on TrueSouth, which is currently in its eighth season on the SEC Network and various Disney streaming platforms. The Sept. 16 episode of TrueSouth focused on Charleston, and restaurants there such as Little Jack’s Tavern, Kooben Cafe Mexicano, Bertha’s Kitchen and others.
But with “House of Smoke” Edge looks inward, coming to grips with the various realities of his own journey. That includes his late mother’s battles with alcoholism, the complexities of having been raised in a house that had previously been the home of Confederate Brigadier General Alfred Iverson, his raucous time as a student at the University of Georgia (where he eventually was kicked out after several hard-partying years) and his later reinvention as a Mississippi-based writer and commentator who examines the nexus of food, class and race in the South.
And South Carolina plays a key role in “House of Smoke,” with passages about his mother’s time living in Columbia later in her life, and her burial in the Bowman area of Orangeburg County. Edge also talks in the book of visits to Columbia as a younger man, where he would spend time with, among others, cousin Meredith Berry, who he considers almost like an older sister.
“It’s a place that sustained me through the years,” Edge said of Columbia during a recent talk with The State. “I’m really excited to come back to Columbia.”
While he has, for years, crisscrossed the region to tell the stories of others, Edge admits that penning “House of Smoke” was a different assignment. It was a personal reckoning, in a sense.
“I didn’t recognize the power of my own story,” Edge said. “But as I began to dig into the stuff of my life, I recognized that I kind of have a responsibility to be honest about my life, and that if I write about my life with honesty and reflection, with an eye on how I’ve made revisions in my life, and how have I found a way forward, that might potentially be an inspiration for others who are along comparable paths, who are on a search for hope, who deal with difficult families and a troubled relationship with the South itself.”
Edge has been a familiar name to many in the South through the years, particularly to those who follow food writing and reporting through his various books, magazine pieces and past work with the Southern Foodways Alliance. But in recent years his work — and his distinctive voice with an unmistakable Georgia-meets-Mississippi accent — has taken on a new life with TrueSouth, the TV show that shines a light into the corners of the region’s culinary traditions.
The author said the SEC Network show has opened him up to a new audience.
“I’ve been in the public eye for a long time, but TrueSouth has brought me into conversation with a broader swath of people,” Edge said. “That cuts across geography, religion, race, class, gender. It cuts across it all. The thing I value so much about TrueSouth is I’m in conversation with everyday people in our region.
“In many ways, I feel like the new book is my attempt to honor those conversations and people. Where people have opened up to me, now I’m opening up to them, telling them about my life, because I see some of my own story in theirs, and I hope maybe they see some of their story in mine.”
This story was originally published September 24, 2025 at 12:11 PM.
