The Jack Ellis Writers Workshop

No small target at six-foot-two, young Sam Houston wasn’t thinking about getting hit. He was thinking about getting even. Running through a hail of musket balls, spears, and arrows, he and his fellow soldiers of the elite 39th U.S. infantry unit sprinted toward an eight-foot-tall barricade. Behind it was an army of Creek Indians who had massacred three hundred men, women, and children at a Mississippi Territory stockade town [...]

For those who loved “The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek,” author Kim Michele Richardson offers another fine evocation of the often cruel conditions of rural Appalachia in the last century and a powerful portrait of the courageous women there who fought against ignorance, misogyny, and racial prejudice. Steeped in an intimate knowledge of the traditions and lore of the region and written with a loving eye to the natural [...]

In the spring of 1781, during the American war for independence from Great Britain, redcoat troops arrived in upland Carolina and brought terror to Elizabeth Jackson and her sons. Elizabeth’s youngest son, Andrew, though barely fourteen years of age, hated their presence—and quickly learned just how costly the fight for liberty could be. On April 9, Andy and his brother, Robert, two years older, joined a battle to defend [...]