Sarah Bryan was born in North Carolina to a family whose roots reach back through 300 years of Carolina history. Her North Carolina forebears include Moravian pilgrims and Confederate veterans, tugboat pilots and tobacco farmers, preachers and moonshiners.

A third-generation University of North Carolina alum, Sarah grew up in a family filled with Tar Heel pride. There was only one conceivable scenario in which the TV would be turned off during a Tar Heel basketball game: when the score was so close and suspense so high that family elders with weak hearts were in medical danger. There are few things that Sarah loves as much as Tar Heel basketball, but fortunately, many of the close runners-up—including alligators, boiled peanuts, and The Andy Griffith Show—are abundantly accessible in North Carolina.

Sarah and her husband Peter Honig live in Durham and are both old-time fiddlers. She works as a folklorist and oral historian at the North Carolina Folklife Institute and is the editor of the Old-Time Herald, a long-established magazine about traditional Southern music. Work, music, and hunting for old records carry her to the farthest reaches and remotest crossroads of this huge state. Whether she’s at home or on the road, she can be reached at sarahbryan [at] waccamaw [dot] net.