I’m a South Carolina writer, storyteller, outdoorsman, and the guy behind the world of Uncle Joe.

For most of my life, I’ve been drawn to old places, back roads, forgotten stories, fishing holes, small towns, and the kind of characters who seem like they could sit down beside you on a front porch and keep you entertained until long after dark. Somewhere along the way, those things became the foundation for both the stories I write and the business I’ve built.

My love for storytelling started early.

Like a lot of kids growing up in the ’90s, I spent plenty of time reading Goosebumps, but the book that really changed things for me came from an unlikely place—a Walmart bookshelf. I was about ten years old when I spotted Frank Peretti’s Monster. The cover caught my attention, I brought it home, and I ended up reading it more times than I could possibly count.

Something about a mysterious creature hiding deep in the woods captured my imagination.

It showed me that a story could be frightening, adventurous, mysterious, and completely absorbing all at once.

Years later, I finally decided to try telling stories of my own.

I’ve been doing it ever since.

Today, I write horror, mystery, suspense, and Southern Gothic fiction centered around ordinary people who find themselves facing things that are anything but ordinary. My stories tend to take place in small towns, wooded back roads, forgotten corners of the South, coastal communities, and places where everybody knows everybody—or at least thinks they do.

I’m fascinated by the idea that something strange can be hiding just beneath the surface of an otherwise familiar place.

A quiet road.

An old house.

A stretch of woods.

A forgotten family story.

A little town with one secret too many.

My writing is heavily influenced by atmosphere, character, nostalgia, and place. Authors such as Stephen King, James Lee Burke, C.J. Box, Frank Peretti, Ted Dekker, William Gay, Cormac McCarthy, etc., helped shape the kind of storyteller I wanted to become: one who can make readers care about the people in a story just as much as they care about whatever might be waiting for them in the darkness.

But somewhere along the journey, something unexpected happened.

One of the fictional worlds I created began spilling over into the real one.

Through my Tales from Uncle Joe stories, I created Joe Conrad—a stubborn, clever, big-hearted Southern outdoorsman living along Louisiana’s Atchafalaya River with his family and faithful Border Collie, Sadie. Uncle Joe loves fishing, family, good food, old stories, and doing things the way they ought to be done.

And apparently, I spent enough time writing about Joe that eventually I started thinking:

Why shouldn’t some of his world actually exist?

That question eventually led to Uncle Joe’s Skeeter Balm.

What began as one small-batch outdoor product inspired by the fictional world of Uncle Joe grew into something much bigger: Uncle Joe’s Bayou Trading Post, a Southern lifestyle brand built around useful goods, old-fashioned quality, family, storytelling, and a healthy appreciation for simpler times.

Today, the Trading Post continues to grow beyond Skeeter Balm into beard balms, working-hand products, lip butters, boot conditioner, Bayou Coffee, Southern-inspired provisions, and whatever else feels like it belongs on Uncle Joe’s shelf.

And that is probably the best way to understand me.

I’ve never been particularly interested in staying inside one box.

I love telling stories.

I love building things.

I love turning ideas into something real.

Sometimes that means writing a novel. Sometimes it means developing a new product. Sometimes it means sitting around a pot of gumbo wondering what Uncle Joe would get himself into next.

When I’m away from the keyboard, I’m usually happiest somewhere near the water with a fishing rod in my hand, cooking seafood or gumbo, watching Braves or Coastal Carolina baseball, working on some new project, or listening to classic rock louder than necessary.

I'm a former college baseball player and along with that I was able to earn my MBA from Coastal Carolina University.

I’ve always considered myself something of an old soul. I like front porches, general stores, worn-in guitars, old boats, fishing camps, family recipes, handwritten stories, and things that feel like they have a little history behind them.

That sense of nostalgia finds its way into nearly everything I create.

I also continue to study and sharpen the craft of storytelling while pursuing my MFA in Creative Writing at the University of LSU New Orleans. For me, writing has never been about simply putting books on a shelf. It’s about continuing to learn how to tell better stories and, hopefully, creating characters and places readers remember long after they’ve turned the final page.

Whether you discovered me through one of my books or stumbled across Uncle Joe while looking for something for your beard, your boots, your tackle box, or your morning cup of coffee, I’m genuinely glad you found your way here.

At the end of the day, the books and the Trading Post really come from the same place.

A love of the South.

A love of storytelling.

A respect for things made with care.

And a belief that life is a whole lot more interesting when there might still be a little mystery hiding around the next bend.

Thanks for stopping by.

I hope you’ll stick around awhile.

All the best,

Randall Lane

Author • Storyteller • Founder of Uncle Joe’s Bayou Trading Post

Southern Goods, Provisions, and Stories.