Mary McKeehan Patton was a gunpowder maker for the American Revolutionary War, in particular, the Battle of Kings Mountain in 1780. Several monuments exist in East Tennessee that honor the Battle of Kings Mountain. A Veterans Monument in Elizabethton, Tennessee, mentions Mary Patton on a side of its obelisk-shaped tower.Continue Reading
Tennessee Williams was one of the foremost playwrights in the 20th century. He wrote close to 40 plays, 70 one-act plays, and several screenplays, achieving great success with The Glass Menagerie (1944), A Streetcar Named Desire (1947; Pulitzer Prize winner), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955; Pulitzer Prize winner),Continue Reading
The following tale, “Legend of Rockface,” can be found in Ivy Love Brown’s short story anthology, Mr. Lotman. “WHAT I’M ABOUT TO TELL YOU AIN’T NO TALL TALE. It’s true. Every line. I’ve fished this here water my whole life. I’ve seen every bit of ribbon that is theContinue Reading
The myth of the Old West exerts a tremendous influence on the popular imagination. Zane Grey pulp novels, countless TV series, and iconic Western films ensure that the cowboy remains a uniquely American archetype representing in one writer’s words, “movement, isolation, change, and new beginnings.” Of course, the outlaw isContinue Reading
I went to my mother’s grave last night, which was fitting, seeing as it was Mother’s Day, but that’s not why I went. I went because she was to be dug up in the morning. All of the graves at the Waldrop Memorial Cemetery, the ones not claimed and reburiedContinue Reading