Diane Roberts is a commentator on Weekend Edition Sunday. An eighth-generation Floridian, she is Professor of English at Florida State University in Tallahassee, where she pulls weeds in the spring and attends FSU football games in the fall. She went to Oxford University courtesy of a Marshall Scholarship in 1980 and earned a bachelor's degree in English literature and a doctorate in American literature.
Purely coincidentally, Americana musician Rhiannon Giddens' new single, “Swannanoa Tunnel,” was released shortly after Hurricane Helene practically leveled the region around Swannanoa, N.C.