Book Launch for Darnell Arnoult’s Incantations

Last week, I had the privilege to be part of the book launch for Darnell Arnoult’s new collection of poems, Incantations. This collection is a mesmerizing group of poems that celebrates language in unique but powerful ways. Many of the poems came out of a period of grief, but the poems are also celebratory and full of hope. They speak simultaneously to the personal and the political, addressing some of the most significant challenges of our times.

The launch took place in Hillsborough, North Carolina, at St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church as part of their Faith and Arts Series. Darnell gave a beautiful reading of her new work. The church was filled, and Purple Crow Books sold all of their copies after the reading. Alison Weiner accompanied her on the piano. And I had double duty that night, first introducing Darnell and then following up with an on-stage discussion about her work. The on-stage discussion was especially fun, and I hope an audio recording of it will be available at a later time. Until then, I want to share my introduction. It was such an honor to be part of welcoming this new book into the world, as well as to celebrate my good friend. I may have also added a little good-natured ribbing.

Welcome, and thank you all for coming out tonight to celebrate our friend Darnell Arnoult and her newest collection of poems, Incantations!

If you are here tonight, there is a good chance that you already know Darnell. Before I get too personal, allow me to properly impress you with a few of Darnell’s professional accomplishments.

Darnell is the author of the novel Sufficient Grace, and two previous collections of poems: Galaxie Wagon and What Travels With Us, and she has published stories, poems and essays in a variety of journals and anthologies.

She is the recipient of the Southern Indie Booksellers Alliance Poetry Book of the Year Award, the Weatherford Award for Appalachian Literature, the Thomas and Lillie D. Chaffin Award, and the Mary Frances Hobson Medal for Arts and Letters. In 2007 she was named Tennessee Writer of the Year by the Tennessee Writers Alliance. She holds degrees from The University of Memphis, North Carolina State University, and The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

If you know Darnell, it’s likely because you have studied with Darnell, perhaps at the Table Rock Writers Workshop, the John C. Campbell Folk School, the Appalachian Writers Workshop, the Tennessee Mountain Writers annual conference, through Learning Events, the Mountain Heritage Literary Festival, or perhaps even as an undergraduate student from Lincoln Memorial University where Darnell served as Writer-in-Residence from 2010 to 2020.

Lincoln Memorial University is the place where Darnell’s and my lives began to intertwine. We co-directed the Mountain Heritage Literary Festival. And we also created and shared editing responsibilities for the literary journal drafthorse, a journal dedicated to writing about labor and occupation. Darnell and I worked together, often getting each other in and out of trouble, and we became wonderful friends in the process.

I cannot list all of the pieces of good fortune that have come to me because of Darnell, mostly because Darnell told me to do something—often something I didn’t want to do or didn’t have faith that I could do. There are too many of these instances to list, but I will tell you that when I decided to apply to MFA programs, Darnell decided I would go to Bennington College’s low residency program in Vermont. I, on the other hand, lacked the ability to imagine being accepted in that program. I didn’t even have any intention of trying. But if you know Darnell, you know that once she’s made up her mind, you might as well agree or get out of the way. It is no exaggeration to tell you that the only reason I applied to Bennington was to shut Darnell up. As she seemed to know in advance, my life changed in innumerable ways because of that program, all for the better.

Darnell is the person who has encouraged me the most as a writer and certainly as a poet. Darnell probably knows my poetry better than anyone, and she has probably influenced my poetry more than anyone. A lot of my early poems originated in workshops Darnell taught. She was the first person who thought I had enough poetry to form my first book, and she largely arranged the order of that book, which in itself was another incredible lesson in learning how to shape individual pieces into a larger narrative. She has seen so many first and early drafts that it’s a wonder she still opens my emails.

In the 10 years that Darnell taught at LMU and lived in Cumberland Gap, Tennessee, my life was richer, and a lot more exciting. In her absence, there are fewer people asking me if I have seen Darnell, if I have any idea where Darnell is, if I can find her, please, help, she’s not answering her phone, she never answers her phone! Why doesn’t she ever answer her phone? There are fewer reasons to rush to the emergency room. There are fewer visits from the fire department. In short, there is much less excitement, and my life is poorer for her absence.

To answer the question as to why Darnell rarely ever answers her phone, I can report that she may have turned the ringer off two days earlier and can’t find the phone, she may have left her phone at home or at someone else’s home, or any number of other places along the way, the battery may be dead, or more likely, she is just already on the other line with someone else who needs to talk to her just as badly as you may need to talk to her. The number of people who rely on Darnell is uncountable. The number of people whose lives have been enriched by Darnell is legion.

I would be remiss to not acknowledge that the 10 years in which Darnell lived in Cumberland Gap were not completely happy. For Darnell, I know that time period is framed by her husband William’s recurring illnesses, his battle with cancer, and his passing in 2020. The poems in Incantations were born from that grief. The deepest kinds of grief. Grief that comes, as she would describe, from worlds burning, from death that dances and glides, from widowhood with its slaughtered and emptied heart.

And yet, within these poems, Darnell also rejoices in the curative properties of language, how it can bewitch and rescue us from despair. When you look at the beautiful cover of Darnell’s new book, you will see an image of fire and light bursting into the darkness. As that image suggests, these poems tell us that there is salvation in the darkness. There is salvation in these poems that are also charms for remembrance, charms for protection and rebirth, and always charms for love, no matter how it may shift its shape.

Join me in welcoming Darnell to the stage as we celebrate her new collection of poems, Incantations.

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You can read a sample of poems from Incantations online at Cutleaf. Or you can order a copy through Purple Crow Books, directly from Madville Publishing, from your own local bookstore or anywhere books are sold. (Photos courtesy of Donna Campbell and Kelly March.)

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In case you missed it… check out my conversation with David Wesley Williams about his novel Everybody Knows.

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Honesty is Bravery Enough: Conversation with David Wesley Williams

Last October, as I was preparing to drive to Nashville for the Southern Festival of Books, my friend Patti Meredith told me to keep an eye out for David Wesley Williams. I found him quickly enough, signing books after his panel with George Singleton. We only had a brief time to chat, but I picked up his new novel, Everybody Knows, and asked him to sign it, not guessing that I would not have time to read it until the new year rolled around. But what a way to say goodbye to 2023 and hello to 2024.

Everybody Knows is a post-apocalyptic satire, but it’s also incredibly beautiful and smart, and a real pleasure to read. As far as apocalypses go, floating across Tennessee on a river boat is not a bad way to go. And it’s always a joy to read the work of an author who clearly enjoys language and is a master at putting words through their paces.

In addition to Everybody Knows, David Wesley Williams is the author of the novel Long Gone Daddies. His short fiction has been featured in Oxford American, Akashic Books’ Memphis Noir, Harper Perennial’s Forty Stories, and journals such as The Pinch and The Common. He spent thirty-five years as a reporter and editor, most of them in Memphis, where he still lives. David agreed to answer a few questions about his writing, his love of music, and the great state of Tennessee.

DL: As a fellow Tennessean, I have to tell you that I thoroughly enjoyed watching you destroy our state. Was that destruction as fun for you to write? And will you talk about how this narrative started for you? Would you say the tone of this book, especially the satirical nature, is similar or different from your first novel and your other writings?

DWW: I didn’t wish destruction upon Tennessee—really!—but I did relish the idea of Memphis, City on the Bluff, being the last hope and refuge for the state. Because as a long-time Memphian I know the ill will—in some cases, the outright hatred—a lot of Tennesseans hold toward Memphis. I suspect some Tennesseans would rather take their chances with a flood than come here.

The novel was written over several years and revised many times, but it always began with the couple on their porch, watching the rain and the coming flood, and one saying, “It’s not the end of the world,” and the other saying, “I think the end of the world’s been called on account of rain.” Later, it actually became a book about the end of the world.

I’d never written satire—or intended to. My first novel, Long Gone Daddies (2013), was about three generations of musicians and the family guitar they handed down. But with Everybody Knows, I was writing at a time when it was impossible to ignore what was going on with the country, the world, the planet: climate change, issues of race, religion, public health, gun violence, crime and punishment, the political divide. Everything was (and still is) so fraught. I felt like I had to write about those things, but in a way that made sense for me. In a way that helped me cope. Writing angry doesn’t work for me. Humor does. So I wrote a self-described “Southern Gothic, mock-apocalyptic, shrunken-epic satire.”

DL: Music is a driving engine in Everybody Knows. Even the title comes from an O.V. Wright song, which I’m so very glad to know now because of your book. It’s clear that you have a passion for all kinds of music, as well as an academic and historical understanding of music. How did you come to see music and particularly the state of country music and Music City as a way to talk about culture and politics?

DWW: I love music, particularly Southern music, which shows up in pretty much everything I write. Music gives Memphis so much of its cultural identity, and also some of its finest moments as a city—white and Black Memphians, working together, to create sublime art.

Also, I think Memphis musicians have always sought success, but on their terms. You can’t easily bend them to the will of the commercial gods. It’s about the song, not a gold record. Sure, we had a band that called itself Big Star, but it didn’t actually sell many records.

Nashville is a whole other place. It’s about business there. How can I say this? I hate modern country music. And when I say modern, I think they’ve been ruining country music in Nashville—turning it to pop—since at least Patsy Cline.

All that said, there’s a lot of Nashville music I love, past and present. One of the characters in Everybody Knows names his boat after Emmylou Harris. Gillian Welch and David Rawlings are on a short list of my favorite performers, alongside the likes of Bob Dylan, Neil Young and—another Nashville favorite—John Prine. Classic country is matchless music. And the Ryman is a national treasure. So there. I don’t hate Nashville. I don’t.

DL: In addition to using humor, irony, and exaggeration to make your readers laugh, you touch on some important topics, especially about race. I took note of how Emmett Till and George Floyd’s deaths were both touchstones within your narrative. Do you have advice for other writers about how to address big cultural moments in fiction?

DWW: I think it really comes down to one thing: Be honest. Say what you believe, say what you feel, say what needs to be said, by you, in the moment. Don’t pander, don’t hedge, don’t calculate. I guess I could add “be brave,” but honesty is bravery enough.

Now, all this may be easy for me to say, because not many people are reading what I write. Everybody Knows was published by a small press and not widely reviewed—but trust me, dear reader, there’s some wild stuff in there, hiding in plain sight!

DL: I’m always interested in the way we identify ourselves with location. You live in Western Tennessee, but you’re originally from Kentucky, as are several important characters in your novel. How does place inform your identity, and impact your writing?

DWW: I think place is everything in fiction. I tend to think of place as a character. Certainly Memphis is a character in most of my stories and novels. And what a character it is—“the old Delta synonym for pleasure, trouble, and shame,” as Eudora Welty called it in one of her books.

Kentucky keeps showing up in my books, in small ways. I think I’m working up to a full Kentucky novel, inspired by my hometown, Maysville—another character worthy of fiction. Daniel Boone lived there. Casey Stengel played ball there. It was Rosemary Clooney’s hometown.

DL: I often ask writers about the process of submitting their manuscripts for publication. Can you describe the time between writing and publishing Everybody Knows? How did you connect with Jackleg Press?

DWW: I queried some 60 agents with the first version of the book, in 2019. The majority didn’t respond. It was already a book about the country unraveling, so it felt natural to revise in 2020 amid the pandemic and the George Floyd murder and the country on fire. I started submitting again, this time with a query letter that began, “What would Kurt Vonnegut write about these times and those ahead for America, if he were alive today — and if he were Southern?”

I sent to a combination of agents and publishers—another 60 or so. The response was the same. They didn’t reject it as much as ignore it. They weren’t even reading it. Which was fine—I just needed one person to give it a chance. Then in early August 2021, I came across a small publisher called JackLeg Press. They asked to read the full manuscript, loved it, and within a couple of weeks I had a signed contract. They’ve been great partners, and we’re looking forward to another novel together. More news on that soon, hopefully.

I’m so grateful to David Wesley Williams for answering these questions. If you haven’t already read Everybody Knows, be sure to order your copy, available at bookshop.org or wherever books are sold.

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In case you missed it… check out my conversation with Georgann Eubanks, where we discussed her travels across North Carolina celebrating some of the state’s most unique foodways in The Month of Their Ripening.

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Ekphrastic Writing at the Knoxville Writers Guild

If you’re in the greater Knoxville area on Thursday, September 7th, I hope you’ll join me at the monthly meeting of the Knoxville Writers Guild at Addison’s Bookstore, located at 126 S. Gay St., in Knoxville. The meeting begins at 7:00 p.m.

I’ll be talking about ekphrastic writing or ekphrasis. The word “ekphrasis” comes to us from the Greek where it means “description.” If you still aren’t sure what ekphrastic writing is, then I’ll briefly define it as writing that vividly describes a pre-existing work of art. I’ll share some of my favorite examples of ekphrasis, and we’ll even generate new work using some of the fantastic art on display at Addison’s.

Here are some of the images I’ll be talking about in this session.

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If you live too far away to be in Knoxville on Thursday, I hope you’ll use one of these images or an image of your own in your writing practice this week. If you come up with something you especially like, please send it to me. If you need more guidance, check out my conversation with Julia Wendell about her ekphrastic poem “Horse in the Landscape.”

Conversation with Georgann Eubanks

Georgann Eubanks is a veteran writer and storyteller. She has published five books of nonfiction ranging from literary guides of North Carolina to natural phenomena across multiple Southern states. Along with photographer Donna Campbell, Georgann operates Minnow Media which has produced a number of public television documentaries. When I was visiting City Lights Bookstore in Sylva, North Carolina, last month, I stumbled across Georgann’s fourth book, The Month of Their Ripening. This book explores 12 different heritage foods found within North Carolina while drawing on first hand accounts from the foods’ producers. Along the way, Eubanks reveals fascinating histories of the foods, the people who produce the foods, and the places where they’re produced. I first met Georgann about ten years ago, and since that time, I’ve seen that she is also a consummate community builder. This fact echoes throughout her work in The Month of Their Ripening, one of several reasons why I emailed Georgann even before I could finish reading the book. I was so excited to ask her questions about this book and her writing process, and now I’m excited to share our conversation with you.

DL: One of the pleasures in reading The Month of Their Ripening is the diversity of foods you write about, and especially that they cover all areas of North Carolina which in itself is a large, diverse geography. How did you come to the idea to write about heritage foods? And how long did it take you to write The Month of Their Ripening?

GE: It took a couple of years to do the research, travel, and writing for this book. But as I always say when someone asks this question, the only proper answer is to give my age at the time of completion of a manuscript.  A book takes everything I’ve learned over all my years! To be ready to write it, I had to ripen, too!

My first three books with UNC Press were literary travel guides featuring excerpts from North Carolina writers about very specific places where they had lived, worked, or visited in the state. So yes, North Carolina is big, and it took three regional volumes—mountains, piedmont, and coastal plain—to cover the 400 years of writers and the 600+ miles it takes to cross the state. That was a ten-year project, but once photographer Donna Campbell and I rested up after that long journey, we wanted to travel the state again. This time we would eat our way across North Carolina!

How it started: I planted a fig in my yard that was the first to survive of many I had tried to grow over the years. When it began producing figs, I was stunned by the delicious fragility and ephemeral nature of the fruit.  You have to WAIT for a fig to ripen, and they only come around once a year. The figs got me to thinking about how spoiled we are in this country, being able to find most any food any time of the year at the grocery.

I started wondering about  the foods that are a key part of North Carolina’s history and heritage, and further, what are the foods that our forebears planted in the ground or harvested from the water that they looked forward to eating as a seasonal ritual? Twelve essays seemed a good size to match up to a whole year of foods in their time of ripening. Of course, January was tricky—nothing much to harvest here in January—so the book starts with snow, which becomes a rarer treat the farther east you go in North Carolina.  Nevertheless, people have been fanatically making snow cream forever, and as it turns out, there are a million recipes and very strong opinions here about the best way to make snow cream. So that’s where the book begins.  

DL: Each chapter in The Month of Their Ripening is beautifully written, and as I read, I was often struck by the voice of your writing which finds the perfect intersection between essay (what some would call creative nonfiction with lush description and personal experience) and investigative journalism (that involves some deep research). Was it difficult to arrive at this intersection, or is this just your natural voice? Do you have tips for writers who want to employ personal interviews or research in their projects?

GE: This is a style that works for me. I start out with my ignorance and take the reader with me on the journey to discover the history, science, and people who have perpetuated these food traditions. As I discover the stories, the reader does, too.  And I try to capture my own joy and surprise in what I learn—some of it deep history, like how figs are discussed in the Old Testament. Then there’s the funny story about how a lady friend of Thomas Jefferson was told by her kitchen staff that she could not serve figs in Washington, DC, at a formal dinner party because figs were “vulgar.” And of course, there’s D.H. Lawrence’s sexy prose on the fig. But these are historical anecdotes anyone can find. What made these stories only mine were the interviews/visits with people on the ground, such as the single man left in Ridgeway, North Carolina, who is still growing a special variety of cantaloupe that was once was harvested by his extended family and shipped north by train in great quantities and served as a special seasonal treat at New York’s Waldorf Astoria.

My advice is to embrace your ignorance and go from there—find the best stories from people who have good tales and expertise to share. Honor their stories. 

DL: One of my favorite aspects in these chapters is the exploration of these various communities that exist all around us. There’s a good amount of detective work involved in your writing, as one person connects you to another and another. More than simply following the pathways from production to consumption, you’re actually getting to know the people you’re talking to and understanding how their lives and livelihoods are connected. How much of that is driven by your own curiosity such as when you wonder what the berries are on the tree outside your home? Do you have advice for writers about following their own curiosities?

GE: I wanted to show the diversity of communities and people in North Carolina.  And now, at least three of the homegrown experts on foods who are featured in The Month of Their Ripening have passed away—the octogenarian and scuppernong grower Clara Brickhouse, the persimmon festival host Gene Stafford, and the snow ice cream expert and unforgettable writer/scholar Randall Kenan. I am so glad to have known them and learned from them and shared their food stories in print. I think this quote from nonfiction writer Tracy Kidder says it best:

“Essays often gain authority from a particular sensibility’s fresh apprehension of generalized wisdom. But the point is not to brush aside the particular in favor of the general, not to make everything a grand idea, but to treat something specific with such attention that it magnifies into significance.”

— from Good Prose: The Art of Nonfiction by Tracy Kidder and Richard Todd

DL: As with your past books, this one was published by The University of North Carolina Press. Can you talk about how you developed a relationship with them and about your experience publishing with a university press?

I have been with UNC Press for so long that I have had three editors—the first two have now retired. I first worked with them on the literary guidebooks. That project was a work-for-hire with a contract from the North Carolina Arts Council. The last two books I pitched to UNC Press on my own. Both are trade books, the last being Saving the Wild South: The Fight for Native Plants on the Brink of Extinction, which has done pretty well, too. I am finishing my sixth book now, also about natural phenomena and covering seven states of the South. (Saving the Wild South featured endangered plants in six states.)

These days university presses are doing more trade books, meaning popular books that are not written only for an academic audience. This is a good thing in that the commercial publishing industry has become more and more centralized and seems only interested in best sellers or what they hope will be best sellers. Regional books have a better chance with a university press. For the press, their trade list often sells enough to supplement the small revenues (if any) that come from highly specialized academic books that have a narrower audience. 

But here’s the thing, no matter who your publisher is nowadays, the success of a book rests on the shoulders of the author.  You need to be able to present the book in such a way that readers buy it.  I think my books have been accepted because they are evergreen, as the publisher likes to say—they tell stories that will last. I also have a track record of giving countless book talks through all five of these books, and I enjoy speaking about the work. Truth is, there is only so much time and money that a press has to give to an individual book.  My editor at UNC Press just launched 12 new books this spring that are his babies. Meanwhile, he is going to be reading my new manuscript come November and trying to acquire new titles and coaching first time authors. He called upon me last week to read a book proposal from a new author and give my assessment of its distinctions and potential.  That’s how university presses work—the editors depend on the proposal and later the manuscript being reviewed by professionals in the academic field being addressed or by seasoned writers with trade book experience who know the marketplace.

I also have an editor I privately engage to read and critique the manuscript because I know that is necessary. I am also responsible for creating an index—that’s part of the contract these days, too.  I have gotten a small grant to cover my travel expenses for the current book I’m writing, which helps, but I don’t do this for the money. I do it because it’s a great challenge, I care about the topic, and I can make a little money giving talks. I get other writing assignments that also help support me.

DL: I’m looking forward to seeing you later this month at the Table Rock Writers Workshop, which is a lovely community of writers and musicians that you shepherd. I believe registration will be closed by the time our conversation is published, but can you talk about your work with TRWW for readers who aren’t familiar? And do you have anything to say about why community is important for writers?

GE: The Table Rock Writers Workshop was born out of the Duke University Writers Workshop, which I attended in the 1980s and then directed for 20 years starting in the 90s. The workshop at Duke was heavily focused on the faculty, getting big name writers—lots of them—to teach. Over the years, we have carved out a different path. We are focused on the participants. I invite faculty who love to teach and have a passion for writing that transcends any concern about commercial success. We don’t really talk much about publication per se, or the marketplace. We focus on writing the best book or story or poem you can.  Our workshop is about craft and being in community—getting the support and encouragement you need for the story you want to tell. Our way of building that community of writers is having generous teachers who model  how to give useful feedback. Participants begin to learn how to edit themselves and how to stick with the discipline needed to finish a draft. Our teachers are people like you, Denton, who do it for the love of words and are generous with sharing what you know.

I’m very grateful for Georgann’s time in speaking to me. You can order The Month of Their Ripening directly from University of North Carolina Press, or wherever books are sold. Please visit Georgann’s website for more information about her and her work.

In case you missed it… I’ve had wonderful conversations with summer with Andy Fogle, the new poetry editor at Salvation South, with Patrician Hudson, author of the historical novel Traces, and with J.D. Isip, author of the poetry collection Kissing the Wound.

If you’re in the Knoxville, Tennessee, area, I hope you’ll join me at Union Avenue Books on Sunday, August 13. I’ll be reading alongside my great friend Sylvia Woods, author of What We Take With Us, a beautiful collection of poems that explores Sylvia’s personal experience as an educator, as well as her own transition from daughter to mother and eventually to grandmother. The reading begins at 2:00 p.m., and we’d love to see you there.

Submission Calls for Writers 7/19/2023

Perhaps it’s the heat, but I can’t quite fathom how we are already steaming in the July sun. July. How did it get here so soon? Not only is summer at least half over, so too is the whole year. That makes it a good time to re-evaluate your goals for your writing and submitting? Do you have any ongoing projects? Are you moving them forward or feeling stuck? Are you submitting your work to journals and magazines?

When I first began to send my stories and poems out to literary journals, my friend Darnell Arnoult encouraged me and my writing group to give ourselves a goal, not for acceptances, but for rejections. That first year, my goal was to receive 50 rejections. Making a kind of game out of it took the sting away every time an editor rejected my work. But the surprise was that I agonized less over trying bigger, higher-tiered journals. I was only aiming for a rejection, but I got some surprise acceptances along the way.

Even though the year is half over, it’s not too late to set some goals for your writing. To that end, here are ten submission opportunities for writers plus a bonus if you will go back and see my recent conversation with Andy Fogle who shared that Salvation South is also open for your submissions. Good luck!

Granum Foundation Prize & Granum Foundation Translation Prize The Granum Foundation Prize will be awarded annually to help U.S.-based writers complete substantive literary works—such as poetry books, essay or short story collections, novels, and memoirs—or to help launch newly published works. One winner will be awarded $5,000. Up to three finalists will be awarded $500 or more. Additionally, the Granum Foundation Translation Prize will be awarded to support the completion of a work translated into English by a U.S.-based writer. One winner will receive $1,500 or more. Funding from both prizes can be used to provide a writer with the tools, time, and freedom to help ensure their success. For example, resources may be used to cover basic needs, equipment purchases, mentorship, or editing services. Competitive applicants will be able to present a compelling project with a reasonable timeline for completion. They also should be able to demonstrate a record of commitment to the literary arts. There is no fee to apply. Applications close on August 1, 2024. https://www.granumfoundation.org/granum-prize

Fried Chicken & Coffee FCAC is an ezine/blog edited by Rusty Barnes, mostly interested in crime fiction, rural, working-class and Appalachian concerns. FCAC accepts short stories, poems and essays. Rusty says: “Send me rural, funky, dirty stories about churchgoing women who never sin. I would love to see more stories about women. Get to the grit, get to the love, show me the scars, and take Harry Crews to heart: ‘Blood, bone, and nerve, that’s fiction. Show me the stuff that cuts to the quick.’” There are no word limits. To submit, send an email to rusty (dot) barnes (at) gmail (dot) com with the words FCAC and SUBMISSION in the subject line. https://friedchickenandcoffee.com/manifesto/submissions/

Lanternfish Press We are seeking novella-length manuscripts between 20K and 40K words that fall in the mist-wreathed borderlands between literary and speculative fiction. In particular, we are interested in climate fiction; regional American Gothic fiction—Midwestern, in the vein of These Bones by Kayla Chenault; Southern, like The Salt Fields by Stacy D. Flood; or Alaskan Gothic, or Rust Belt Gothic—whatever kind of luxuriant and atmospheric decay floats your boat; well-researched historical fiction that breathes life into its material and cultural milieu; queer monsters for readers who enjoyed Carmilla or Elegy for the Undead; fiction that can claim as a comp title the novel Wednesday Addams was typing on her typewriter in the attic. Deadline to submit is July 31, 2023. https://lanternfishpress.com/submissions

Orion We’re excited to read your pitches for our upcoming Summer 2024 issue. This time we will specifically be looking to read pitches for essays and reporting about animals and floods. How is marine life impacted by water reaching the shore? What are the interesting ways you’ve observed land animals responding to water? We’re looking for pitches for stories that would be 3,000 to 4,000 words in length for an issue of Orion looking with fresh eyes at the floods around us. Please try to keep pitches to 500 words or so. https://orion.submittable.com/submit/267484/pitches-for-summer-2024-issue-on-floods

Necessary Fiction This October, we want to be scared. We want to feel unsettled. We want to go to sleep with dread knotted in our stomachs. Send us your spooky tales, your uncanny narratives, your haunted places, your tortured monsters, and your Gothic twists. We accept unpublished fiction up to 3,000 words only. Deadline to submit: July 31, 2023. https://necessaryfiction.submittable.com/submit/200451/special-call-october-stories

Galileo Press  Galileo Press is open for submissions of full-length collections of poems, essays, stories, as well as novellas, novels, memoirs, or hybrids (with exception to 4-colour art / text hybrids).  Please indicate in the title of your submission which genre you feel best describes it. Galileo hopes to publish 2-4 selections while also reserving a few manuscripts for development. A small stipend of $200-$500 is provided, along with copies and standard royalties. A few elements we consider are a confident, appealing voice; the thematic cohesiveness and the emotional range and maturity; vivid imagery and the balance of abstract to concrete imagery; deft handling of highly charged emotion; the capacity to surprise; use of wit, humor, and self-implication; the elastic syntax, pace, and music; and the choice and use of extended metaphor, skillfully juxtaposing the micro and the macro. There is an $18 submission fee. Submissions are open through August 1, 2023. https://freegalileo.com/submissions/

Short Story, Long We are accepting short stories, 2k-8k words long (with the 3,000-5,500 range being our real sweet spot). What are we looking for? Honestly, best indicator is to read a story or two we’ve already published. Second best indicator is to generally be familiar with Editor Aaron Burch’s taste and what he’s published on HAD, and Hobart before that. Every published story will be paired with original art, with both the writer and artist receiving $100. Submissions are open until August 1, 2023. https://ashortstorylong.submittable.com/submit

Kitchen Table Quarterly Kitchen Table Quarterly is a journal preoccupied with history- cultural, political, geographical, personal, and how each interacts with the other to mold our experience. Adolescent blunders, dental records, the archaic origins of long-held or long-lost traditions— we want to know all of it. We are looking for work that spills secrets and wipes the dust off of old memories. Submit no more than five poems (with a maximum of 10 pages). For creative nonfiction, submit a stand-alone piece of up to 3000 words. While we accept all forms of creative nonfiction, we typically prefer essays. Submissions are open until August 1, 2023. https://www.kitchentablequarterly.org/submit

Salt Hill Salt Hill publishes poetry, prose, translations, essays, interviews, and artwork. Please submit no more than five poems at a time. For prose, please do not submit works of more than 30 pages, double-spaced.  We accept multiple flash pieces, so long as their combined length does not exceed 30 pages. We accept nonfiction and art submissions year-round. Deadline for all other submissions is September 13, 2023. https://salthill.submittable.com/submit

Potomac Review Rooted in the nation’s capital’s suburbs, Potomac Review is the antidote to the scripted republic that surrounds it. We seek literature from emerging as well as established writers around the globe to facilitate literary conversation. We accept submissions through October 15, 2023. We’ll read stories and essays of any size, though typically we find it difficult to make room for works that run longer than 7,500 words. Please submit up to five poems. http://mcblogs.montgomerycollege.edu/potomacreview/submission-guidelines/

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Thanks for reading. Please feel free to share these opportunities with other writers. 

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In case you missed it… I had the opportunity earlier this month to celebrate place poems alongside P. Scott Cunningham and J.D. Isip, as part of Emerge Journal’s Be Well Reading Series. And earlier this summer, I had a wonderful conversation with Patricia Hudson about her novel Traces, which gives voice to Rebecca Boone and her daughters.

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Conversation with Andy Fogle

In 2021, founding editor-in-chief of The Bitter Southerner Chuck Reece and his wife Stacy Reece began publishing Salvation South. In the publication’s opening salvo, Reece famously said, “I’m not bitter anymore. What I am is hopeful.”  According to Salvation South’s guidelines, they accept stories, in all mediums, including journalism, essays, fiction, photography, filmmaking, and poetry. I saved poetry for the end of that list because Andy Fogle is Salvation South’s new poetry editor, and he’s looking to publish work by established, emerging and new poets. Andy agreed to share some insight into exactly what he’s looking for in terms of submissions. If you’re reading this, Andy (and I) hope you will consider sending Salvation South some of your own work.

DL: Congrats on your new role as poetry editor at Salvation South. I love the magazine’s origin story, and how Chuck and Stacy Reece have said to “think of Salvation South as a big old house party—filled with people who want to celebrate Southern culture and people who are searching for new reasons to be hopeful about the South.” Can you talk about how that ethos pertains to the kind of poetry you hope to curate for the magazine?

AF: Thank you much. I’ve been wanting to get back into doing something like this for a long time, and, among my various professional duties in this world, it’s really one of my favorite things to do.

To the house party metaphor and poetry: I want to cast as wide a net as I possibly can, so just come on in, at least for a cup of coffee. Ever since 10^th grade when I realized I wanted to devote my life to the arts, I’ve found things to like all over the artistic map, both across and within genres, and they all swap around. In college and grad school, I ran kind of a punk literary zine called 5^th Gear, and while I definitely made some mistakes, I also think I got an underground reputation for being seriously eclectic. You could read all kinds of crazy-different and interesting stuff in 5^th Gear. I’m still proud of that, I still believe in that, and I still aim to act like that. I have an MFA; I’ve participated in (and won 2) poetry slams; I’ve taught in all kinds of schools; I’ve been into way-out experimental stuff, formal stuff, middle-of-the-road stuff, street stuff, uncategorizable stuff…I believe that the best poetry has an aesthetic energy and a social function. I believe in the beauty of both, the magic of many, the awe of all. If I can help present a consistent mosaic of diverse voices, I’m a happy dude.

DL: The first time that I became familiar with your work and your involvement at Salvation South was when I read your wonderful interview with the poet Annie Woodford. I loved this interview for a lot of reasons but in part because Woodford’s poetry and your interview with her takes a hard and honest look at her corner of the South. It shows that while Salvation South’s point of view is hopeful, it’s also very focused on narratives that seek to accurately depict the places where we live.

AF: Annie is my newest living poetry hero, for a bunch of reasons I tried to articulate in that piece. Part of it is what look you mention, which is hard, honest, and hopeful too, I think. Salvation South’s general guidelines say we’re looking for “stories, in all mediums, that reckon with the history and celebrate the culture of the American South.” We publish pieces that do one of those things, but I savor those that do both. Celebration should not be blind, and reckoning is kin to rapture. I think being able to face the hard things is a reason for hope, and I think we can even look for hope in the gut-wrenching stuff, not just despite it. Maybe struggling with history is a form of celebration; maybe celebration is predicated on some form of struggle. When we shine a light on what’s been tucked away in the corners of our consciousness, it’s uncomfortable, it’s uncertain, and it’s unpredictable—but remember it’s still light that is the tool.

DL: Let’s talk about the mechanics of the submission process. Are you looking for individual poems or groups of poems? Do you have preferences for style, length, etc.? 

AF: First of all, it’s free to submit. I like to see 3-5 poems rather than a single poem. It gives me a broader idea of a poet’s style(s), concerns, and abilities, and it also gives me more stuff to try to build a fire with. Obviously with a single poem, that’s your only shot, and I’m getting a very restricted view of your work; with at least a trio, there’s a higher probability of me finding something to encourage, which is what I want to do. Here’s something unusual and, I hope, useful: I write individualized comments in my responses with some regularity, I guess because I’m a teacher and I’m glad to strike up conversations and correspondence with poets.

Any length and any style, but I should say that I think branches and roots are related. It’s only a good thing when people have an idea of what’s been going on in the last few decades of poetry. But aside from that, if you love language, you’re probably a poet, at some level. And if you also have something…not necessarily to “say,” but if you have something intellectual, emotional, and/or sensual for readers to witness through that love of language—if you’ve got something to wrestle with in the joy of language—then send it on. I read pretty much all the time, year-round, and often respond to folks within a week.

DL: Should submitted work speak explicitly about the South?  

AF: We generally do need to see its relevance to the South, be that addressing its past (which is still present), celebrating its culture, or something else. There have been a couple of poems I’ve almost accepted, but then realized that at least geographically, culturally, or thematically, it could’ve been written by anyone from anywhere, and any kind of Southern relevance just wasn’t any part of the equation. Good poems, but not quite a good fit (I try to let people know that too, just to be clear).  

I’ll also say that it feels like Salvation South has become sort of a refuge for Southern storytellers of all types, whether their stories come out as prose or verse. We still love reported journalism, but we also love beautifully written personal essays that address all things Southern—identity, politics, history, culture, whatever. It would be nice to see more fiction submissions—we don’t get very many short stories.

(Read Patti Meredith’s short story Sand Dollar in Salvation South here.)

DL: Although you’re originally from Virginia, you now live in upstate New York. Has living outside of the region allowed you to view the South in a new light?

AF: If anything, it’s made me defensive. From what I’ve experienced in 18 years of upstate New York, there is, at best, a slowly-fading ignorance about the South. Too many people just blindly lean right into the stereotypes, some of which, to an extent, we’ve unfortunately earned. Living in the North has probably deepened some of my distaste for the stubborn isolationism that persists—although neither region is clean in that regard. Sometimes I do read news about something in the South and think, “What the hell is wrong with y’all?” And then the next day I’ll be calling out some of my high school students, asking why they snicker at the word “Alabama” when I mention my aunt lives there. Ignorance doesn’t use a map.

But look, then again, I recently came home—which is a complicated word for me—to visit my dad, and we took some stuff to the dump, and I very quickly wound up having a brief but detailed and familiar-feeling conversation with the attendant guy—about my compression sock, and how I’d pulled a calf muscle, and then they found two blood clots in there—and he’s friendly as can be, asking follow-up questions and everything. Guess what happens a few days later when my dad and I go to the dump with another load of stuff? Same thing with the same guy. We’re just talking. And it’s not at all weird. I love that. I feel like I’m home—at the dump, talking with the attendant about compression socks. My chest just swelled with love for that little convergence. I think I appreciate that kind of thing more at this point in my life, since I see that it happens way less often up where I live now.

DL: You’re a poet in your own right. Can you talk about some of your current or upcoming projects?

AF: I have my second full-length book of poems coming out in November with Main Street Rag Publishing out of Charlotte. It’s called Mother Countries. It’s mostly about my mom, divorce, death, Virginia, race, and a little grace. It’s not always pretty. A hard book for me, one I don’t expect to get comfortable with anytime soon. It took me way too long to address that particular knot of issues in my work, but I needed to. And I’m about 2/3 done with a long, multi-dimensional book of poems related to abolitionist John Brown, tentatively called Cutting Light. With a little luck, I’ll start sending that around sometime in the fall. I also, when time permits, co-translate an Egyptian poet named Farouk Goweda with my friend Walid Abdallah. We have a chapbook out last summer called Arc and Seam from Finishing Line in Georgetown, Kentucky, but we’re hoping to eventually develop a full-length of his work.

Many thanks to Salvation South and particularly to Andy Fogle for answering my questions.

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If you missed it, I had the opportunity last week to read some poems about place alongside P. Scott Cunningham and J.D. Isip in Emerge Journal’s Be Well Reading Series. It was such a fund reading. You can watch it here. Check back next week when I plan to post a new list of summer submission opportunities.

A Celebration of Place Poems and More

Tonight, July 6th

If you’ve read almost any of my writing, you won’t be surprised that place is a central element in both my prose and poetry. So I couldn’t be more excited to be part of tonight’s Celebration of Place Poems, part of the Be Well Reading Series from ELJ Editions & Redacted Books. I’ll be reading alongside J.D. Isip and P. Scott Cunningham.

Tonight’s celebration of place poems begins at 7:00 p.m. EDT. The event is online, and it would be lovely to see you there. The event is free, but you must register in advance through Eventbright: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/be-well-reading-series-a-celebration-of-place-poems-tickets-666444412177

Sylva, North Carolina, on July 8^th

If you’re in western North Carolina, please come out to the fantastic City Lights Bookstore in Sylva, North Carolina, on Saturday, July 8^th at 3:00 p.m. EDT. I feel so lucky to be able to return to City Lights, one of my favorite book stores and one of my favorite places to read. And if that wasn’t enough, there’s more. I’ll be there with my friend Patti Frye Meredith who will be reading from her novel South of Heaven, a great book about a familiarly-dysfunctional family in a small Southern town. (You can read my past conversation with Patti about her book.) South of Heaven was so much fun to read, and it’s always a joy to be in Patti’s company. We both would love the chance to see you in person at City Lights!

Tamp in Chapter 16 & Change Seven

Finally, I want to say how grateful I am for the writers who give their time to reviewing other writers’ books. And especially those who review my book! It was great to see Tamp receive some love in the past few weeks, and I truly appreciate the generous views they’ve taken to my work.

Emily Choate at Chapter 16 said, “…each poem stretches taut between our perception of the material world around us and the ineffable, inescapable pull of a deeper world.”

And Ace Boggess at Change Seven said, “Tamp is not a book to be entered lightly. The poems have been crafted with the grave digger’s precision.”

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Thanks also to all of you who subscribe to this newsletter, and for all of the ways you’ve already shown support for me and Tamp! Stay tuned for new posts in the coming weeks as I share a new list of summer submission opportunities, as well as my recent conversation with Salvation South‘s new poetry editor.

Submission Calls for Writers 6/15/2023

While I was putting together today’s list of submission opportunities, I discovered that Catamaran Literary Reader is charging $8 for general submissions. That’s insane. My personal philosophy is to never pay this much to submit my work. I’ve been involved with numerous literary journals and organizations over the years, and I understand all of the reasons to charge reading fees and generate income. I’m not opposed to the idea. But $8 is obscene even in a time plagued with inflation. Back to my own philosophy on the matter: There are too many good journals who don’t charge at all or who only charge a nominal fee. Submitting work can be expensive, and I try to take that into account when I compile submission lists. You’ll notice that some of today’s opportunities do come along with application or submission fees. Again, I’m not opposed to the concept. The key, I believe, is to make sure the benefit is proportionate to the risk and/or reward. In that spirit, here are 10 opportunities I recommend. Good luck!

Cimarron Review We accept submissions year-round in poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and art. Please include a cover letter with your submission. Please send 3-6 poems, one piece of fiction, or one piece of nonfiction. Please only submit to one genre at a time. Address all work to the appropriate editor. https://cimarronreview.com/submit/

Southeast Review The Southeast Review publishes poetry, literary fiction, creative nonfiction, and art in each biannual issue as well as on SER Online, in addition to online book reviews and interviews. We pride ourselves on presenting emerging writers alongside well-established ones. Please submit one double-spaced short story of up to 7500 words. Please submit no more than 5 single-spaced poems at a time, with a maximum of 15  pages per total submission. Place all poems in one document. https://www.southeastreview.org/general-submissions

32 Poems We welcome unsolicited poetry year round and accept simultaneous submissions.  As a rule we publish shorter poems that fit on a single page (about 32 lines), though we sometimes make exceptions to accommodate remarkable work that runs a little longer.  $3 submission fee. http://www.32poems.com/submission-guidelines

Berkeley Fiction Review Berkeley Fiction Review accepts short fiction, sudden fiction, comics, and art submissions. We look for innovative and reflective short fiction from new and emerging writers across all genres that play with form and content, as well as traditionally constructed stories with fresh voices and original ideas that say something new or bring nuance and perspective to an ongoing cultural conversation. https://berkeleyfictionreview.org/submit/

Juked There are no limits on word count for online fiction or nonfiction—we like narratives and essays of all sizes, so long as the colors fit. For our print issue, we accept prose submissions of at least 2,500 words. For poetry, we are looking for long poems (four pages or longer) or sequences of two or more linked poems. Submit a maximum of five poems. We read year-round. http://www.juked.com/info/submit.asp

Key West Literary Seminar Emerging Writer Awards The Cecelia Joyce Johnson Award, Scotti Merrill Award, and Marianne Russo Award recognize and support writers who possess exceptional talent and demonstrate potential for lasting literary careers. Each award is tailored to a particular literary form. The Merrill Award recognizes a poet, while fiction writers may apply for either the Johnson Award (for a short story) or the Russo Award (for a novel-in-progress). Winners of the 2024 Emerging Writer Awards will receive full tuition support for our January 2024 Seminar and Writers’ Workshop Program, round-trip airfare, lodging, a $500 honorarium, and the opportunity to appear on stage during the Seminar. There is a $12 application fee. Deadline is June 30, 2023. https://www.kwls.org/awards/emerging-writer-awards/

Rhino Poetry Rhino looks for the best-unpublished poems, translations, and flash fiction/nonfiction by local, national, and international writers. We welcome all styles of writing, particularly that which is well-crafted, uses language lovingly and surprisingly, and feels daring or quietly powerful. General submissions are open through June 30, 2023. https://rhinopoetry.org/general-submissions

Muzzle Magazine Muzzle publishes poetry, interviews, and book reviews. We are actively seeking submissions in poetry and are also open to queries about reviews and interviews. Please send 3-5 poems at a time. Include all poems in one DOC or PDF file. Make sure that your name does not appear anywhere in the document or submission title; our editors like to view submissions blindly. We are open from June 15 through July 15, 2023. http://www.muzzlemagazine.com/submissions.html

Sundress Publications Call for Full-Length Poetry Manuscripts Sundress Publications is open for submissions of full-length poetry manuscripts. All authors are welcome to submit qualifying manuscripts through August 31, 2023, but we especially welcome authors from marginalized and underrepresented communities. We’re looking for manuscripts of forty-eight to eighty (48-80) single-spaced pages; front matter is excluded from page count. Individual pieces or selections may have been previously published in anthologies, chapbooks, print journals, online journals, etc., but cannot have appeared in any full-length collection, including self-published collections. Single-author and collaborative author manuscripts will be considered. There is a $15 reading fee per manuscript, but the fee will be waived for entrants who purchase or pre-order any Sundress title or broadside. http://www.sundresspublications.com/fulllength/2023/06/sundress-opens-for-full-length-poetry-manuscripts/

Ploughshares We accept fiction and nonfiction that is less than 7,500 words. Excerpts of longer works are welcome if self-contained. Submit 1-5 pages of poetry at a time with each poem beginning on a new page. We accept submissions to the journal from June 1, 2023, to January 15, 2024. There is a $3 submission fee. https://www.pshares.org/submit/journal/guidelines

Thanks for reading. Please feel free to share these opportunities with other writers. 

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In case you missed it… I had a wonderful conversation with Patricia Hudson about her novel Traces, which gives voice to Rebecca Boone and her daughters.

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Conversation with Patricia Hudson

I live in the shadows of the Cumberland Gap. The idea of westward expansion and the mythology of Daniel Boone are very present in my mind and in my daily life. This weekend, I found myself engrossed in the lives of the Boone women as I read Patricia Hudson’s novel, Traces, written from the perspectives of Daniel’s wife Rebecca and their two daughters Susannah and Jemima. Hudson has combined years of meticulous research along with the tools of fiction to give voice to women who were often forgotten or purposely omitted from the historic record. Before publishing Traces, Hudson worked as a journalist, writing for publications such as Americana, Country Living, and Southern Living. She also co-edited Listen Here: Women Writing in Appalachia, and coauthored The Carolinas and the Appalachian States, a volume in the Smithsonian Guide to Historic America series. Patricia agreed to answer some questions about Traces, the Boone women, and her writing process.

DL: In your acknowledgments in Traces, you mention that it took you nearly 25 years to write this book. As a freelance journalist, you were working during those 25 years, and you were also focusing on various other projects. But you must have been continually living with the Boone women in the back of your mind. Can you talk about what motivated you to never give up on this project?

PH: I suspect my husband would say it’s because of my innate stubbornness. It’s hard for me to abandon something I feel strongly about, and for whatever reason, these three women never let me forget about them, even though pieces of this manuscript spent decades in my desk drawer. Like so many other women, Rebecca, Susannah and Jemima had been neglected within the historical record, and I didn’t want to be guilty of yet another “forgetting.” However, at one point, when folks asked me how the novel was progressing, my response was: “Rebecca has climbed out of my desk drawer, given me a disgusted look, and told me she was walking back to Kentucky because I was no count.” Thankfully, she eventually came back.

DL: Of all genres of writing, historical fiction feels perhaps the most daunting to me. I know you employed countless years of research, and you also learned from visiting living history sites. What advice do you have for others interested in in this genre?

PH: Historical fiction authors are sometimes accused of having “research rapture” — that is, researching endlessly rather than actually writing. My first piece of advice for anyone who wants to write historical fiction is that from the beginning you should accept that you’ll never know everything about a historical period. Author L.P. Huntley said, “The past is a foreign country — they do things differently there.” As hard as you try, you won’t get every detail right.

You’ll also be faced with situations where — for reasons of clarity, or to corral a sprawling manuscript — you have to depart from a strict reconstruction of the historical record. For example, I didn’t want to depict more than one of the Boone family’s journeys through Cumberland Gap, so I combined several actual events from several years into a single trip. The rule of thumb is that a writer of historical fiction is allowed to bend history, but not break it.

DL: You have a wonderful map on www.patricia-hudson.com that illustrates the journeys made by the Boones throughout their lives. You also continue to post a “Boone Blog.” Does this mean that you aren’t finished with the Boones? Will you continue to write about them? Are the voices of these women still speaking to you?

PH: I think I’m “done” with the Boones in the fictional sense, but the Boone Blog will likely continue for a while. I’ve always loved getting to see “behind the scenes” of creative endeavors. During college I worked on the stage crew of various theatre productions because I loved watching a play come together, observing all the ways a director would tweak various elements of the show between performances. The Boone Blog pulls back the curtain on how Traces was created. I wanted to highlight the many folks I encountered during the research and acknowledge them — historians, living history reenactors, librarians, and so forth. It’s one small way of saying “thank you” to them for their help.

DL: Reclaiming the stories of historic women in itself makes Traces a political novel in some ways. Another way is in how you address the complications of race, both with whites and Blacks and even more so with whites and indigenous people such as the Cherokee and Shawnee. Can you talk about how you balanced narrative and historical accurateness with cultural sensitivities and modern perspectives?

PH: One of the main reasons I wanted to depict the lives of three of the Boone women, rather than just Rebecca, was because each of the women had unique experiences that allowed me to show a variety of responses to the cultural norms of the time.

As a young wife and mother, Rebecca had tragic interactions with the tribes who called Kentucky home, which I felt sure colored her view of the Indians and their culture. Yet somehow, towards the end of her life, she welcomed Daniel’s Shawnee friends as guests in her home. As a novelist, it was my job to imagine how that change of heart might have come about.

The historical record tells us that Jemima Boone harbored friendly feelings towards Native-Americans, even though she’d had the harrowing experience of being kidnapped by them. She reportedly said that the Indians “treated her as kindly as they could” under the circumstances. Her attitude, which was much like her father’s, allowed me to offer readers a more nuanced portrayal of the Indians than would have been possible otherwise.

My third protagonist, Susannah, accompanied her father and several dozen axmen into the wilderness as they cut the initial trace through Cumberland Gap, and then on to the site along the Kentucky River that would become Boonesborough. The only other woman in that party was an enslaved woman, whose name may have been Dolly. One reviewer doubted my depiction of these two women — one black, one white — developing a friendship. Under normal circumstances, they probably wouldn’t have, but when you consider that Susannah was not quite fifteen years old, that she’d had very little experience with slavery up to that point, and that Richard Callaway’s slave was the only other woman in a party of several dozen men, I believe the two women would have supported one another during that very arduous journey. Their relationship allowed me to portray an enslaved person as a fully formed human being.

DL: Through reading Robert Morgan’s Boone: A Biography, I learned that Richard Callaway, not the most admirable characters, was my 7x-great uncle. (Another of my grandmothers was a Bryan, related to Rebecca Bryan Boone.) I later shared this with Mr. Morgan, and he replied, “One reward of writing the Boone biography has been hearing from many people who are connected with Boone or others in his story. It’s like Boone’s life unites us in a unique way.” Have you found a similar response in regard to the lives of the Boone women?

PH: Definitely. At nearly every place I’ve spoken, someone has come up to me and said they were related to the Boones, or had ancestors in the Yadkin Valley, or at Boonesborough, or some other place mentioned in the book. During my research, I discovered that I had ancestors that went through the Gap not long after the Boones did. They tried to establish a homestead near present-day Danville, Kentucky, but when the Indians burned  them out, the family retreated back through the Gap and settled in Powell Valley. My father’s side of the family sank deep roots along the Powell River until TVA flooded their land. If things had worked out differently, I might have been a Kentuckian instead of a Tennessean.

As for Richard Callaway — I depicted him as seen through the eyes of the Boone family. Of course, the Calloway family’s version of the story would have been told very differently. Callaway sought to have Boone court martialed, so there was no love lost there. However, everyone, including the Boones, recognized that Calloway was a brave man who worked hard to protect the inhabitants of Boonesborough during the settlement’s early years. Richard Callaway was fiery, while Boone was more low-key, so from the very beginning, it was a clash of personalities. Maybe you need to write your great uncle’s side of the story? In historical fiction, as in life, truth is multi-faceted. There’s always more than one way to tell a story.

I’m so grateful to Patricia Hudson for answering these questions. If you haven’t already read Traces, be sure to order your copy, available at https://bookshop.org/p/books/traces-patricia-l-hudson/18102062 or wherever books are sold.

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In case you missed it… check out my conversation with Davin Malasarn, where we discussed my poetry collection Tamp on The Artist’s Statement.

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Martin Amis’s “Oktober”

You may have seen that the writer Martin Amis died last week. I’ve never read any of Amis’s novels, but on hearing the news, I immediately recalled Amis’s short story ”Oktober,” a story that has lingered in my memory because of how much I have admired it ever since the first time I read it 7 or 8 years ago.

I’ve seen this story criticized as “non-fiction-ish” and “lightly fictionalized.” It doesn’t matter to me how much Amis heavily drew from his own experience and observations, as if there’s only a certain amount that’s okay. Rather, this story should be held up as an example of how we can fictionalize our own experiences to find deeper, emotional meaning on the page. Perhaps one reason this story speaks to me is because it’s archetypal in that it portrays a character on a journey, and, as Amis said:

“Even the dullest journey resembles a short story: beginning, middle, end, with the traveler displaced and, we hope, alerted.”

I admire this story for many reasons, most notably because it’s such a well-executed political story. It addresses world events on both the largest and smallest scales. In this case, the story centers on an Englishman in Munich during Oktoberfest, and more importantly, during an influx of Middle Eastern refugee movement. What the narrator witnesses is framed both by literature (Vladimir Nabokov & Thomas Wolfe) and history (Russian refugees in 1917 & German refugees following World War II).

The story’s refugee thread holds continued relevance in light of the migrations being politicized in the United States, centered around the expiration of Title 42.

One of the characters in “Oktober,” Bernhardt, is Iranian-German. He says about the migrants: “You know, they won’t stop coming. They pay large sums of money to risk their lives crossing the sea and then they walk across Europe. They walk across Europe. A few policemen and a stretch of barbed wire can’t keep them out. And there are millions more where they came from. This is going to go on for years. And they won’t stop coming.”

There are also mothers of various types appearing on virtually every page of “Oktober.” And in regard to the mothers that Amis portrays here, I would mention that one thing I admire about this story is how tightly he weaves all the threads of the story. It may not always seem so because the language is conversational, but everything seems to serve a purpose. Everything is connected. Meanwhile, the story is not so economical that it feels austere or lacking. It feels rather sprawling instead.

Amis received criticism during the last several years for some sloppy comments he made about terrorism and extremism. Some of these comments are not so far from those of Geoffrey, a British businessman in “Oktober” who has a less than welcoming attitude towards migrants. Geoffrey is also the character who brings the most shock value to the story. So while he is not a likeable character, he’s incredibly dramatic to follow.

I don’t know if I’ll ever get around to reading any of Amis’s better known works, but it was a pleasure to revisit this story and to remember all of the reasons I admired it in the first place. You can read Martin Amis’s short story, “Oktober,” online at The New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/12/07/oktober. And I hope you will.

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In case you missed it… check out this month’s list of Submission Calls for Writers, and my conversation with Erika Nichols-Frazer, where we discussed my poetry collection Tamp and her memoir Feed Me, hosted by Birch Bark Editing.