Dori Sanders
Dorinda (Dori) Sanders, lifelong South Carolinian, was born in York County in 1934. She grew up and still resides on farmland purchased by her father in 1915. For more than a century, the Sanders family has proved the wisdom of that purchase. Her father strongly believed in land ownership and agricultural knowledge as critical to African Americans’ economic futures in the post-Reconstruction era of Jim Crow laws. In 1919, the elder Sanders planted the first crop of the peaches that have become the key ingredient in the farm’s success. In addition to the prosperity from farming itself, Dori Sanders credits her work on the farm, especially at its farm stand each season, with giving birth to her writing career.
Clover, her first novel, appeared to critical and popular acclaim in 1990. Clover won the Lillian Smith Award for Southern Writers, appeared in 10 hardcover and countless paperback editions, and was adapted for the screen in 1997. In 1993, Sanders published her second novel, Her Own Place. Dori Sanders’ Country Cooking: Recipes and Stories from the Family Farm Stand appeared in 1995. This volume especially, made up of both recipes and narratives that customers had shared with her, helped establish the connection between food and story that the author explains in the film Dori: food becomes stories and laughter and those become food for her writing. Her sources—food, stories, and laughter—become evidence of Sanders’ conviction that “Country life brings out the best in a person.” This idea was elaborated on by Marsha C. Vick, who sees “the celebration of everyday people, black and white, who live in the rural South and depend on each other” as the thread connecting all of Sanders’ writing.
Clover, her first novel, appeared to critical and popular acclaim in 1990. Clover won the Lillian Smith Award for Southern Writers, appeared in 10 hardcover and countless paperback editions, and was adapted for the screen in 1997. In 1993, Sanders published her second novel, Her Own Place. Dori Sanders’ Country Cooking: Recipes and Stories from the Family Farm Stand appeared in 1995. This volume especially, made up of both recipes and narratives that customers had shared with her, helped establish the connection between food and story that the author explains in the film Dori: food becomes stories and laughter and those become food for her writing. Her sources—food, stories, and laughter—become evidence of Sanders’ conviction that “Country life brings out the best in a person.” This idea was elaborated on by Marsha C. Vick, who sees “the celebration of everyday people, black and white, who live in the rural South and depend on each other” as the thread connecting all of Sanders’ writing.
