Dad at 40 Remembers You and Bob Terry moved the outhouse four feet backward in the dead midnight of possum and starshine and how your father hitched his overalls up and walked into the foul pit. He tanned your ass while Bob ran away. Thirty years later you giggle at the memory in … Continue reading THREE POEMS by Rusty Barnes
I visited my old homeplace tonight, a town in Kentucky in the County of Pike called Virgie. The home is brown and warm and sings memory and holds my grandmother, who I call Mother, as does everyone I personally know. Mother taught my dad to play guitar. My dad taught me to play guitar. She … Continue reading THE FAMILY CREST – nonfiction by Sheldon Lee Compton
Willie Davis’s debut novel Nightwolf, published in July from 7.13 Books, moves fluidly through the streets of Lexington, Kentucky and explores the ties of family and place and friends, loss, memory, and longing, as well as anything written this past year. That’s a lot for a first-time novelist to take on, but Davis seems to … Continue reading LAUGH OR CRY: THE COMPLEXITIES OF WILLIE DAVIS’S NIGHTWOLF by Sheldon Lee Compton
Tater parked his truck on the side of the single-lane gravel road. He grabbed his guitar case, got out, and walked across the old covered bridge which had been declared unsafe and condemned years ago. Humans and wildlife could pass at their own risk, but forbidden that cars and trucks drive on the rickety heap. … Continue reading BLUESMAN OF THE WOODS by Jeremy Perry
by Sheldon Lee Compton Chris Offutt has been busy the last few years. A new memoir and a new novel are enough evidence of that. But he’s also busy with other projects, projects where he can use his hands to create things. This is the kind of thing Chris does because he is Chris. … Continue reading ‘Writing is a way of going home’ – An interview with Kentucky’s native son Chris Offutt
Dick Jones took hold of the rattler with both hands, its body wrapping around his hairy forearm, the shovelhead grasped between his thumb and forefinger. “Now that’s how you pick up a dangerous snake,” he said. “You either don’t do it at all, which is the smart thing, or you pin that motherfucker.” I took … Continue reading CROTALID by Rusty Barnes
On April 8, 1979, graduate student Breece Pancake walked into his backyard in Charlottesville, Virginia, sat beneath an apple tree, put the barrel of a shotgun in his mouth and pulled the trigger. He was 26 years old. The act gave birth to perhaps one of the more enduring mysteries the world of literature has … Continue reading THESE MOUNTAINS, THESE WORDS: THE SELFLESS WRITINGS OF BREECE D’J PANCAKE by Sheldon Lee Compton
