Diary

Southern Literary Review has posted a review of Glass Cabin. You can read the full review here.

Tina and I will be reading at Plenty Downtown Bookshop this upcoming Monday, May 6, at 7pm in Cookeville, Tennessee as part of the Sawmill Poetry Series. Hope to see you there.

Thanks Kai Coggin for including us in Wednesday Nigh Poetry’s virtual reading. You can watch a video of Tina and me reading two poems from Glass Cabin here.

Glass Cabin is out in the world today! Just want to thank Pulley Press and all the wonderful people there who helped make this book. The poems in Glass Cabin chronicle the thirteen years Tina and I have spent building our home and living on Hydrangea Ridge.

and everyone who came to the book release for Glass Cabin this past Sunday, April 21. We had so much fun reading, taking questions about the poems, about our Glass Cabin, and just getting to talk to everyone. And, we sold out of books!  

Finally had time this week to hang two photographs by Richard Bickel — J.R. and Ebony at Turner Landing, and Mileena, Logger’s Daughter. Richard very generously allowed us to make these photographs the covers for our books. Mileena is the cover of Tina’s collection of poems, Known by Salt. J.R. and Ebony is the cover of my collection of stories, This Ditch-Walking Love. We are grateful to him for that. His work connects with what we write. We first came across these photographs in Richard’s book, Apalachicola River: An American … Continue ReadingRichard Bickel

who invited Tina and me to read our poems about tornadoes, their devastation, and discuss the connection between tornadoes, religion, and politics in Alabama for an upcoming film. You can find those poems in Tina’s book, Known by Salt, and in our book, Glass Cabin. * In addition to the poems, I read the postcard op-ed I wrote for the New York Times after the tornadoes came through in April 2011. Below is a link to that Times essay. Underneath is the essay I wrote a year later on the … Continue ReadingAnd Thanks to the Filmmakers

Rural Assembly visited our home this past week to film Tina making cornbread and reading poems. The podcast will be released this summer. Just wanted to say thanks to the folks at Rural Assembly (who are partnered with the Daily Yonder) for driving down and spending what was a gorgeous spring afternoon on Hydrangea Ridge.

Backstory — Late fall every year, I drive over to my neighbor Nick’s house and we go into his yard searching for blueberry sprigs small enough to grip at the base of the stem and tug loose from the earth. We set the bent roots down in a bucket of water, and I carry that bucket home sloshing in the bed of Ruby, our ’98 Dodge truck. As many have told me, and it’s true, “You can’t kill a Dodge.” Usually, I plant the sprigs right away, but one time … Continue ReadingBlueberry Sprig Fence

That’s what our friend (also named Jim) calls the new 550 gallon cistern Tina and I got for the rain catchment system we’re building. After years of hauling water, I’m trying to shape water’s path now through hoses and filters and pumps.

It was a week of getting over being sick, of catching water for the cistern, and building a blueberry sprig fence for me. It was a week of planting asparagus, milkweed, hollyhocks, gladiolas, four-o’clocks, and one dandelion in the old garden for Tina. That dandelion we found blooming in a ditch. Tina has tadpoles now to feed cucumber slices. The bluebirds have come back to the cedar house our neighbor Nick gave us.  The hawks have been all around, looking for a place to build a nest. Sunday is the … Continue ReadingWWOZ Sunday

Woke up this morning to a fog over Cherty Ridge. Soon the sun will break up the fog and the mist will come up to the house, then fall back to Sally Branch that lies between us and Cherty, become a dense bank we can’t see through. All morning this will happen until the fog vanishes completely.

Just got the ARC of Glass Cabin. Book is beautiful. Thanks, Pulley!

Unfortunately, Tina and I were sick and unable to make it to the Monroeville Literary Festival. Hopefully, we’ll get over there some time in the future.

Tina and I gave a reading and workshop on Friday, February 23 in Triana as part of the Smithsonian’s Crossroads: Change in Rural America. We just wanted to thank Laura Anderson and the Alabama Humanities Alliance for sponsoring what was a wonderful event.

Pulley Press interviewed Tina and me about our upcoming book, Glass Cabin. You can read it here.

We can hear the frogs now. They have laid the first eggs of the new year in the puddle up the road from us—it’s one of the first signs of spring we look for. But the rains have stopped and the puddle is drying out. So Tina scooped up some of the eggs and brought them home to place in casserole dishes of water. Soon those dishes will be full of swimming tadpoles.

Just wanted to share the cover for our upcoming collection of poems, Glass Cabin! It will be released in March.

I want to thank the editors at High Horse for publishing two poems–“Turkey Vultures” and “September Prayer”–from our upcoming book, Glass Cabin.

Here is a review of This Ditch-Walking Love, winner of the Tartt Fiction Award in 2020. Ditch-Walking was published by Livingston Press in 2021, and I’m working on an audiobook of these rural Alabama stories.

Turkey vultures, six-seven of them, came to visit the day after rain. Sally Branch to the sky was all mist. Mist was all we could see. And the turkey vultures took refuge in the leafless branches just northwest of the cabin. First time they’ve come this close and stayed. Usually they’re wheeling the sky into place.

We got a dusting of snow and a cold spell. Had to fill up as many blue jugs of water as we could and bring them inside. The outside tanks are frozen. Had to cut wood to feed vestal, so she can keep us warm.  

“Necessary Weight, Necessary Time” is the essay Tina and I wrote for What Things Cost: an anthology for the people: (University of Kentucky Press, release date March 7). Our essay is about the power and ache of work in our lives. We are very proud to be part of this wonderful book that is a fundraiser for the Poor People’s Campaign.