“I want to walk with Dada,” Eli announces. I smile to myself when I hear his little six-year-old voice. On this October day, a clear, expansive sky spreads across the land. My boy runs to me and takes my hand. Tall grass, gradually fading to brown in the autumn season,Continue Reading

Welcome to our continuing series about Appalachian hauntings. In this post, we’ll be journeying to Georgia, Kentucky, and Mississippi. Enjoy the history and the goose bumps. Georgia Barnsley Gardens – Bartow County Background: Godfrey Barnsley (1805-1873) was an Englishman who came to America in 1824 and soon became one ofContinue Reading

  All aficionados of Southern literature know that William Faulkner’s literary landscape was the alluvial soil of the Mississippi Delta, the author’s “postage stamp corner of the world,” in his own memorable phrase. However, Faulkner’s biographers often overlook or downplay his connections to Tennessee. For instance, Faulkner’s great-grandfather and namesake,Continue Reading

Grace put the top down on the old Miata and we burned the open road, our hair spinning wild as Medusa in the crisp late spring. We should travel to Monrovia, California to see Upton Sinclair’s house, she had said, and take one of those cross-country road trips on ourContinue Reading

**Warning:  Graphic Depictions of Violence in this post Have you ever met the devil in Appalachia? Alone in unnerving wooded areas day or night? The devil wears different disguises. For some, he is a brawny satyr with goat legs, bovine horns, and an arrowed pin tail. For others, the devilContinue Reading