Smoke and Silence:
The Lives of Ol’ Mort
Smoke and Silence: The Lives of Ol’ Mort is a folk epic memoir built from memory, myth, and the stories passed down across generations in eastern Kentucky. Told in the voice of Mort’s great-great-grandson and rooted in tales shared by Mort’s grandson, this is the story of a man who lived hard and loved quietly—who survived a world war, outran federal agents, raised his family from the land, and became something larger than life.
God’s Oddling:
The title of this book, God’s Oddling, comes from something my father used to call me. For years he called me “oddling” because I had gone away to college and become a writer, and because I didn’t smoke the tobacco we grew or drink the mountain liquor brewed nearby. I was recovering from my heart attack when my father died. During those last days he often visited me at my house, and he still called me “oddling.” … —Jesse Stuart, Greenup, 1960
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Allan Eckert’s Winning of America Series
This Jesse Stuart Foundation best-selling series details accounts of frontiersmen and Native Americans and many dramatic events of the time period. Many years of research went into this popular series that also tells the story of wilderness America itself, its penetration and settlement.
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Jesse Stuart Junior Books
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Latest JSF News
JSF author to be inducted into Kentucky Writers Hall of Fame
Loyal Jones at the 2018 Kentucky Book Fair. Jesse Stuart Foundation author Loyal Jones will be inducted into the Kentucky Writers Hall of Fame during a ceremony at the Kentucky Theatre in Lexington on March 24. Other inductees include author George Ella Lyon, former state historian James C. Klotter, groundbreaking Black journalist Ted Poston, and poet Robert Hazel. Loyal is a prolific writer and scholar of Appalachian culture. A [...]
JSF best sellers ~ Feb. 21-27
#1 A Penny’s Worth of Character, Jesse Stuart #2 The Frontiersmen, Allan W. Eckert #3 Blue Jacket: War Chief of the Shawnees, Allan W. Eckert #4 The Wilderness War, Allan W. Eckert #5 The Conquerors, Allan W. Eckert
Regional Readers to meet March 29; The Pioneers book focus
The Regional Readers book group meets Tuesday, March 29 in the former JSF Conference Room (now Right Eye Graphics). Coffee and conversation at 2 p.m.; book discussion at 2:30 p.m. The March selection is The Pioneers: The Heroic Story of the Settlers Who Brought the American Ideal West by David McCullough. Pulitzer Prize-wining McCullough rediscovers an important and dramatic chapter in the American story – the settling of the [...]
JSF best sellers ~ Feb. 14-26
#1 The Frontiersmen, Allan W. Eckert #2 Blue Jacket: War Chief of the Shawnees, Allan W. Eckert #3 The Beatinest Boy, Jesse Stuart #4 A Penny’s Worth of Character, Jesse Stuart
Many Underground Railroad sites have been restored and are open to tours
I am proud to present this article as the Jesse Stuart Foundation’s tribute to Black History Month. February was chosen as Black History Month because Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass, two men who played important roles in abolishing slavery in the United States, were born in February. Before the Civil War, the Underground Railroad was a network of hundreds of safe houses throughout the North and South that served [...]