In her essay “Recording the Seasons,” Walker writes about a period of acute depression that she experienced while living as an adult in Mississippi. What are some of the sources of this depression? How does Walker come to resolve it? 

In a 1973 interview, Walker states that she is more religious in her poetry than in her fiction-writing. What do you think that she means by this? What is different about her process of writing fiction and writing poetry, as she talks about it in this interview?

These essays show Walker, over a period of years, leaving the South, returning to it, then leaving it again. What about the South is difficult for her? What about it attracts her?