Several years ago, as my tribute to Veterans’ Day, I wrote about Willie Sandlin, Kentucky’s only World War I Medal of Honor recipient. Last year, I wrote a lengthy essay, “In Praise of Appalachian Soldiers,” which was serialized in the Daily Independent. This year, [...]
Best known for his nonfiction work “Night Comes to the Cumberlands,” Harry M. Caudill also wrote fiction, including “Dark Hills to Westward: The Saga of Jenny Wiley,” first published in 1969 and recently reprinted in a new softback edition by the Jesse Stuart Foundation. [...]
Charles Manson was a sociopath, a criminal, and a lifelong predator. He achieved national and world-wide infamy as the leader of “the Manson family,” a commune of his murderous followers that developed in the late 1960s in the California desert. However, long before Charles [...]
In the fall of 1938, Jesse Stuart arrived in Greenup after a year of studying and writing abroad. A large delegation of friends and family met him at the train station, and many inquired about his plans. Jesse told them that he expected to [...]
In his 1956 autobiography, “The Year of My Rebirth,” Jesse Stuart makes brief mention of the mid-nineteenth century murder of “Nick” Nickapopolis, a pack peddler who worked W-Hollow on a monthly basis in the 1850s. Little is known of “Nick”—the people of W-Hollow did [...]
One-room school life inspired two famous books by Kentucky authors. “The Thread That Runs So True” by Jesse Stuart is a nationally recognized autobiographical novel. Not as well-known but even more interesting is Janice Holt Giles’ novel, “Miss Willie,” set in the hills of [...]
"How to Build Your Dream Cabin in the Woods" will not make you a better carpenter, plumber, or rock mason. It is not going to take you step-by-step through the process of laying logs or framing or teach you constructions skills. There are lots [...]
On March 9, 1976, just before noon on a cold and cloudy day in the coal fields of Eastern Kentucky near Oven Fork in Letcher County, the Scotia mine exploded. The day shift that morning had a crew of 106 men, working six sections [...]
My friend Billy C. Clark died on March 15, 2009. Since then, I have thought of him often. Memories of long trips together or his fanciful stories supercharged with hyperbole always make me smile. The great eastern Kentucky writer and storyteller began his life [...]
Lily May, center, of Coon Creek Girls, c. 1950. Music has always been an essential part of the lives of Appalachian people, who valued their banjos, fiddles, and mandolins almost as much as the family firearms. From the early settlement of eastern Kentucky [...]
