Episodes
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Our conversation this week is with Chloe Maxmin & Canyon Woodward. Chloe is the youngest woman ever to serve in the Maine State Senate. She was elected in 2020 after unseating a two-term Republican incumbent and (former) Senate minority leader. In 2018, she served in the Maine House of Representatives after becoming the first Democrat to win a rural conservative district. Canyon is a political strategist, author, and trail runner who served as Chloe's campaign manager in Maine. Together they wrote "Dirt Road Revival: How to Rebuild Rural Politics and Why Our Future Depends On It" and founded Dirtroad Organizing, where they continue their work empowering the next generation of rural organizers, staff, and candidates. They are both children of rural America, Chloe from Nobleboro, ME and Canyon from Franklin, NC and the North Cascades.
In this episode we talk about the long history of Chloe & Canyon's special friendship, their deep love of their home, family, and the natural world keeping them grounded, finding their way into organizing and political action at Harvard, the brain-drain in rural places, the circle from going away to coming home, listening to stories as a campaign strategy, curiosity replacing fear, understanding moral communities, telling more unified stories to beget social change, and the great work Chloe & Canyon are doing with Dirtroad Organizing.
Check out Chloe & Canyon's work: Dirtroad Organizing
Read their book! Dirt Road Revival
Chloe's appearance on Big Ideas for a Small Planet: Communities
Canyon & Chloe in the film Rural Runners
Mentioned in this episode:
Making Noise: The Story of a Skatepark by Cecilia Cornejo Sotelo
The Wandering House — Cecilia Cornejo Sotelo
How Students Pressured Harvard to Divest From Fossil Fuels
Howard Zinn
Marshall Ganz
Tim McCarthy
Hollowing Out the Middle by Patrick J. Carr and Maria J. Kefalas
King Coal
Weather Reports — Terry Tempest Williams
Cowee School Arts and Heritage Center
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Our conversation this week is with Hilda Downer. She's an Appalachian poet, retired psychiatric nurse and English instructor at Appalachian State University, member of the Southern Appalachian Writers Cooperative, and most importantly, a child of Bandana, NC.
In this episode we talk about Hilda's love for Bandana, the mica and feldspar mines as a haven, seeing beauty in what others see as ugly, walking and tasting nature, seclusion as a reason to get together, an infinite connection through landscapes and music, poets projecting themselves into the future, finding her place at Wiley's Last Resort and SAWC, the life and legacy of Jim Webb, poets as legislators of the world, and attention as the rarest form of generosity.
Location: Hilda's home in Sugar Grove, North Carolina
Read Hilda's work:
Wiley's Last Resort
When the Light Waits for Us
Sky Under the Roof
Bandana Creek
Mentioned this episode:
Groundglass by Kathryn Savage
Jim Webb
Wiley's Last Resort
Battle at Blair Mountain by Hilda Downer
Pine Mountain Sand & Gravel Literary Magazine
Mitchell County Historical Society: Bandana
Roan Highlands Ecology
The Year of My Life by Issa Kobayashi
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T.S. Eliot
Southern Appalachian Writers Collective
Pauletta Hansel
Legislators of the World by Adrienne Rich
Mountaintop Removal 101 - Appalachian Voices
Appalshop
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Missing episodes?
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Our conversation this week is with Vivian Gibson. She's the author of 'The Last Children of Mill Creek' - a bestselling memoir about growing up in the 1950s in a segregated St. Louis neighborhood, a life-long entrepreneur, the Missouri Library Association's 2022 Missouri Author of the Year, a 2020 Missouri Humanities Council Literary Achievement Award winner, and most importantly, a child of Mill Creek in St. Louis, Missouri.
In this episode we talk all about Vivian's memoir, why the story of Mill Creek is so important, writing the story you want to read, the lasting influence of her mother and father, the suprising connections people across the world have to her memoir, sharing Mill Creek through a child's eyes, how Vivian developed her self-definition and confidence, The Last Children making it on syllabi, and the continued fight for recognition and understanding of her home.
Location: Vivian's kitchen table | St. Louis, Missouri
Buy Vivian's book! The Last Children of Mill Creek
Check out Vivian's website: vivian-gibson.com
Go see The Ross Family Exhibition at the Missouri History Museum
Watch & listen to Vivian's TED Talk, 'Deferred Storytelling'
Visit Pillars of the Valley
Mentioned in this episode:
Nikwasi Mound in Franklin, NC
Cowee Mound
Watauga Town
Kituwah Mound
Where's the Reservation? by Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle
Rondo Neighborhood in St. Paul, MN
How Interstate 40 changed the face of Jefferson St. in Nashville, TN
Toni Morrison
Belt Publishing
Historian Gwen Moore brings to life a largely untold part of St. Louis' past
Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps
Harland Bartholomew: Destroyer of the Urban Fabric of St. Louis
Protest Targets SLU Plan to Tear Down Former Mill Creek Valley Buildings
Urban Renewal and Mill Creek Valley: Decoding The City
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Our conversation this week is with Annie B. Jones. She's the owner of The Bookshelf, an independent bookstore in Thomasville, Georgia, host of the 'From the Front Porch' podcast, and child of Tallahassee, Florida.
In this episode we explore the power of ordinary stories, the beauty and challenges of small-town life and business, how faith built The Bookshelf, her evolution as a From-Away in Thomasville, work as humility, her wonderful team of booksellers and communal support, an honest (and refreshing) take on Amazon, and the strength given by "weak ties" inside a bookshop.
Visit The Bookshelf in Thomasville!
Listen to the From the Front Porch Podcast
Mentioned in this episode:
An Old Fashioned Girl and Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater by Kurt Vonnegut
The Chumscrubber
Louisa May Alcott's Orchard House
Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
Wendell Berry
Nora Ephron Documetary - Everything Is Copy
Dragonfly Books in Decorah, Iowa
Ernest & Hadley Booksellers in Tuscaloosa, Alabama
City Lights Bookstore in Sylva, North Carolina
A Novel Escape in Franklin, North Carolina
Independent bookstores turn a new page on brick-and-mortar retailing
Hollowing Out the Middle by Patrick J. Carr and Maria Kefalas
James 1:2 - 4
The Fifth Chinese Daughter by Jade Snow Wong
Boswell Book Company in Milwaukee, Wisconsin
The From-Aways and The Crane Wife by CJ Hauser
I'm nobody! Who are you? by Emily Dickinson
Sundog Books in Seaside, Florida
Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward
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Our first conversation of 2024 is with John T. Edge. He's an acclaimed author, the host of TrueSouth on ESPN/SEC Network, Director of the Mississippi Lab at the University of Mississippi, the founding director of the Southern Foodways Alliance, resident of Oxford, Mississippi and child of Jones County, Georgia.
In this episode John T. takes us back to his childhood in Clinton, Georgia, talks about the infuence his mother and father have had on his life, explores the vicissitudes of his career, shares his fascination with lost worlds and underworlds and Underground Atlanta, gives us a lesson on change, and recounts how Oxford, MS became his true homeplace.
All things John T. Edge:
johntedge.com
TrueSouth on ESPN
The Mississippi Lab
Southern Foodways Alliance
Mentioned in this episode:
A Brief History of Thought: A Philosophical Guide to Living by Luc Ferry
My Mother's Catfish Stew by John T. Edge | Oxford American
The Angolite, Prison Acitivist Resource Center
William Price Fox
The Third Life of Grange Copeland by Alice Walker
White Trash Cooking by Ernest Matthew Mickler
God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater by Kurt Vonnegut
Alberto Cruz Art
General Alfred Iverson's Birthplace Historical Marker - Clinton, Jones County, Georgia
Senator Iverson's Speech - January11, 1860
Janisse Ray
King Coal by Elaine McMillion Sheldon
Blair Hobbs - University of Mississippi
Remembering Emmett Till by Dave Tell
Gorilla by Lee Stockdale
Underground Atlanta
Dante's Down the Hatch
Natasha Trethewey
A Place Like Mississippi by W. Ralph Eubanks
Clinnesha Sibley - Story Made Podcast
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Our conversation this week is with Garrett Martin: award-winning filmmaker, owner of VentureLife Films production company, and child of Hamilton, Virginia.
Martin has worked on numerous documentaries with his last feature, UNBOUNDED, receiving multiple international awards and has been shown around the world. His current feature, THE RIVER RUNS ON, is making its rounds through the film festival circuit and will premiere in 2023. His clients include organizations such as BBC, The Nature Conservancy, World Wildlife Fund, National Parks Conservation Association, Eastern Band of Cherokee and more.
Listen to us talk about Garrett's journey to becoming a filmmaker, the mystery and magic of nature, learning to break the rules, chasing after god, searching for meaning and identity with a camera, learning to film while hitchhiking from Newfoundland to Canada, sharing happiness, stories of unreal human generosity, the adventure of a lifetime on the Greater Patagonian Trail, and using film to open people up to the magic of the world.
Location: Garrett's home | Asheville, NC
garrettrmartin.com
theriverrunson.com
Watch UNBOUNDED
Mentioned in this episode:
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
Time Away From Time by Eliza Edens
Werner Herzog Films
Crumb - A film by Terry Zwigoff
Jan Dudeck - The Quest to Complete the Greater Patagonian Trail
Mile...Mile & a Half (2013)
Nantahala and Pisgah Forest Revised Plan Finalized (February 17, 2023)
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Our conversation this week is with Elaine McMillion Sheldon: Academy Award-nominated, Peabody-winning, and two-time Emmy-winning documentary filmmaker, Assistant Professor of Cinema Studies at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville, and daughter of West Virginia.
She premiered her latest feature-length documentary, KING COAL, at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival. She is the director of two Netflix Original Documentaries - "Heroin(e)" and "Recovery Boys" - that explore America's opioid crisis. In 2013, she released "Hollow," an interactive documentary that examines the future of rural America through the eyes and voices of West Virginians.
Listen to us talk all about KING COAL, the highlight of her life/career, film and processing grief, fiction as a way to be honest, self-definition and creativity, learning to watch your tone, overcoming limiting narratives, the struggle of memory and change, the power of having death in your mind, a strange and beautiful funeral, Louise McNeill and other unknown artists, stories as salvation, and the mythic character of Elaine’s Paw Paw.
Location: Elaine's office at the University of Tennessee | Knoxville, TN
Upcoming screenings for KING COAL
KING COAL | Official Trailer
Hollow - An Interactive Documentary
John Prine - Summer's End Offical Video (directed by Elaine)
Find the rest of Elaine's films on her website!
Mentioned in this episode:
The Songlines by Bruce Chatwin
The Other Others – First Law and Songlines
Dr. Anne Poelina
Dr. Mary Graham
Alexis Wright
West Virginia Culture Center
Moments by Mary Oliver
Super Duty Tough Work Podcast
Alysia Santo of The Marshall Project
Howard Berkes
Death and Dying in Central Appalachia by James K. Crissman
The photographs of Finley Taylor
Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose by Flannery O’Connor
Hill Daughter: New and Selected Poems by Lousie McNeill
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Our conversation this week is with Nina Parikh - Director of the Mississippi Film Office, filmmaker, producer of Sundance award-winning film 'Ballast', and child of Mississippi.
Listen to us talk about a timeless love story, searching for and deepening roots, the making of 'Ballast' and loving words from Roger Ebert, launching a career in Eudora Welty's living room, 25 years of connecting the world & Mississippi through film, how to get stuff done in a polarized world, belonging and not being enough of anything, and seeing the story in everything.
Location: Mississippi Film Office; Woolfolk State Office Building | Jackson, MS
Mississippi Film Office website
Watch Ballast
Watch The Inspection
Watch Eudora Welty interview about 'A Worn Path' (Feb. 21, 1994)
Rogert Ebert's review for Ballast : "The very life of life" (Oct. 29, 2008)
Selected passages from The Sante Fe and Taos Colonies: Age of the Muses by Arrell Gibson
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Our conversation this week is with H.C. Porter - Vicksburg-based photographer, painter, printmaker, owner of H.C. Porter Gallery, and child of Jackson, Mississippi.
Listen to us talk about her initial joys in life, combining artistic interests, seeing Millsaps Avenue, the influence of Studs Terkel and Eudora Welty, the stories behind 'Backyards and Beyond' and 'Blues @ Home', and learning how to tell stories outside of Mississippi.
Location: H.C. Porter Gallery | Vicksburg, Mississippi
HC Porter website
Buy 'Backyards and Beyond' and 'Blues @ Home'
Follow HC Porter on Instagram and Facebook
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Our conversation this week is with Brent Martin - author, conservationist, educator, Executive Director of the Blue Ridge Bartram Trail Conservancy, 2022 Thomas Wolfe Memorial Literary Award winner, and longtime beloved member of the Cowee community in Macon County, NC.
Listen to us talk about Brent writing a book on the wild and beautiful life of George Masa, William Bartram's story and what he can still teach us two centuries later, the vicissitudes of conservation work, seeing difference differently, finding common ground in the wild, nature and the numinous, and finding/maintaining hope as a member of a horrible species.
Location: Cowee School Arts and Heritage Center | Macon County, North Carolina.
Blue Ridge Bartram Trail Conservancy
Buy Brent's book! George Masa's Wild Vison: A Japanese Immigrant Imagines Western North Carolina
Brent Martin wins Thomas Wolfe Memorial Literary Award
Mentioned in this episode, for you to explore:
William Bartram's Travels
John Lane
Back of Beyond: A Horace Kephart Biography by George Ellison and Janet McCue
Mountain Fever by Tom Alexander
Grove Park Inn detention facility during World War II
The Heart of the Alleghanies; or, Western North Carolina by Ben Grosscup and Wilbur Zeigler
'The Mystery of George Masa' Documentary
The Alarka Institute and Expeditions
Audobon Society Disavows Racist and Slave-Owner Elisha Mitchell
General Winfield Scott begins the Trail of Tears, absolutely not a hero
Emerson's Nature and the Artists by Tyler Green
'Luddite' Teens Don't Want Your Likes
How Tom Petty Barely Held It Together on 'Echo'
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Our conversation this week is with Julyan Davis - artist, writer, narrative painter of the American South and West, explorer of lost stories, child of England and citizen of the world.
“If you’re able to find beauty in what everyone else doesn’t consider for a second, there’s a great richness in that. In a way you’ve made your own discovery.” In 1988, Julyan wandered into Sotheran’s Rare Books in London, England and discovered ‘Stars Fell on Alabama’ by Carl Carmer. Transfixed by the state’s history and a 19th century colony settled by Napoleonic exiles, he followed his curiosity to the source. After a few months spent working odd jobs and saving money, he set off on a great adventure from England to the American South – the untidy land of wistful melancholy that would shape his art and life. He’d eventually settle in the Southern Appalachian Mountains, finding in them a strange kinship and connection to his homelands.
When he was struggling to earn a spot at an art school, Julyan decided to take his own advice. He found the meeting point of all his particular interests and created a life there. He pursued his dream with conviction and certainty for so long that by the time he realized how difficult it would be, it was too late. He was an artist.
In this episode you’ll hear Julyan talk about his great adventure from England to Alabama, walking as a lifestyle, finding beauty where others don’t look, the never-ending story of American Ghosts, connecting Appalachia and the Scottish borders, the art of creating for yourself, creating a timeless children’s story for his son, and much more.
Location: Julyan's home | Asheville, NC
Visit Julyan's Website!
Buy his debut novel, A History of Saints
Mentioned in this episode, for you to explore:
The Mind of the South by W.J. Cash
Excerpts from The Song of the Lark by Willa Cather
The Moviegoer by Walker Percy
Stars Fell on Alabama by Carl Carmer
Carson McCullers
Searching for the Wrong-Eyes Jesus
Caspar David Friedrich
City Lights Bookstore in Sylva, NC
To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Bruce Chatwin: One of the Last Great Explorers
Walking with Werner Herzog
Paris, Texas (1984)
The Story of Picher, Oklahoma
'There's No Memory of the Joy.' Why 40 Years of Superfund Work Hasn't Saved Tar Creek
Cheap Old Houses
Edward Hopper
Andrew Wyeth
Populism and the World of Oz
Dark on Netflix
The Storied South by William Ferris
Helpmate Domestic Violence Services
How Erwin, Tenn. Is Reinventing Its Legacy of Killing Mary The Elephant
The Professor's House by Willa Cather
'Luddite' Teens Don't Want Your Likes
A Good Man is Hard to Find by Flannery O'Connor
Glenis Redmond
'Weather Vane' by Common Market
'Language of My World' by Macklemore
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
Eugenics and Sex Harmony by Rubin Herman
Landmarks by Robert Macfarlane
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Our conversation this week is with Elon Justice - filmmaker, writer, creator of the Appalachian Retelling Project, and child of Pikeville, Kentucky.
"Challenging the narrative of Appalachia - one story at a time." Raised in Eastern Kentucky, Elon heard stories from her family that taught her who she is and where she comes from - and to be proud of it. But she also saw firsthand how negative, steretypical images of her home had the power to cause harm to the people and places she loved. So she decided to do something to change that.
Rooted in co-creation, the Appalachian Retelling Project shares stories that lift unheard voices and give an honest glance into what it means to be from the mountains. The people of Appalachia are tired of others talking about who they are, so this is a space for them to talk back. "Mountains stories, on our own terms" - as they should be told.
In this episode, Elon talks about growing up in Pikeville, the influence of her family, her first recollections of Appalachian stereotypes, moving away for college, her wild and powerful journey to the Massachussetts Institute of Technology (MIT), why she started the retelling project, co-creation and community-based storytelling, and much more. I hope you listen!
Check out The Appalachian Retelling Project website
and elonjustice.com
Mentioned in this episode, for you to explore:
The Brier Sermon – You Must Be Born Again by Jim Wayne Miller
Pikeville Cut-Through drone video
Hillsville Remembered: Public Memory, Historical Silence, and Appalachia's Most Notorious Shoot-Out by Travis Rountree
Justified on Hulu
John Dils
General William Ratliff
Frank Waller
Effie Waller Smith
The Collected Works of Effie Waller Smith
Breaks Interstate Park: The Grand Canyon of the South
BitSource
Beyond Coal: Imagining Appalachia's Future
Diane Sawyer’s Hidden America: Children of the Mountains
Billy Ray Cyrus' trip to Kentucky on American Idol
We're not going to watch 'Hillbilly Elegy', and we hope you won't either
100 Days in Appalachia on the legacy of Deliverance
The Moonshiner (1904)
The Dollmaker by Harriette Arnow (book, 1954)
The Dollmaker (movie, 1984)
Katerina Cizek
Collective Wisdom - Co-Creating Media for Equity and Justice by Katerina Cizek and William Uricchio
Sarah Wolozin
Elaine McMillion Sheldon
Hollow - An Interactive Documentary
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Our conversation this week is with Suzi Altman: photographer, caretaker of folk-art treasure Margaret's Grocery, and Mississippian by way of Youngstown, OH and New York City.
"I couldn't just let that be forgotten or overlooked." When Suzi moved to Mississippi, she received the gifts of friendship with James Meredith, "Preacher" Dennis, and Margaret Rogers Dennis. She didn't take them for granted, working tirelessly to honor, preserve, and amplify James' rightful place in history and save iconic folk-art site Margaret's Grocery. In spite of everything, Suzi keeps going because she keeps her promises. She doesn't wait for the miracle. She sees it and shows up for it every day.
In this episode you'll listen to Suzi's journey to Mississippi, how a photograph started a special friendship with James Meredith, the simple beauty of Preacher and Margaret, her fight to save Margaret's Grocery and her own life, the power of saying 'yes', and much more.
Location: Suzi's home in Brandon, Mississippi.
Suzi Altman's website
The Story of Margaret's Grocery in Vicksburg, Mississippi
Donate to help Save Margaret's Grocery
Mentioned in this episode:
'Tell Me a Story' by Robert Penn Warren
David Milch - Every Story is a "Showing Up"
Brink Lindsey's "The Permanent Problem"
John Maynard Keynes
Man's Search for Meaning by Victor Frankl
Lorelei Books in Vicksburg, MS
40 Years After Infamy, Ole Miss Looks to Reflect and Heal
The Rainbow Room at the Rockefeller Center
Maude Schuyler Clay
Eyes on Mississippi: A Fifty-Year Chronicle of Change by Bill Minor
Willie Tankersley
Dan Rather Interview with James Meredith
Oral history interview with 'Chooky' Falkner
Sacred Space: Photographs from the Mississippi Delta by Tom Rankin
Anson Sheldon, pro-segregation rioter at the University of Mississippi in 1962
Proud to Call Mississippi Home by Checky Herrington
Lemuria Books in Jackson, MS
Derrick Bell, The Man Behind Critical Race Theory
Joe Minter's African Village in America
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Our conversation this week is with Lee Stockdale - acclaimed poet, Army veteran, and winner of the 2022 United Kingdom National Poetry Prize.
For 10 years, Lee felt a slab on his head - to infinity in every direction - weighing him down. His father, Grant Stockdale, was close friends with John F. Kennedy and, overcome by grief, jumped to his death ten days after the assassination. Due to the shame, stigma, and guilt, he didn't talk about it. But with the help of an extraordinary therapist, a chance enounter with Patti Smith, and cab ride with Jackie Kennedy, Lee felt the weight lift; the loneliness give way to connection. He started doing the things his father did. He finished college, got married, had children, and built a life worth living. And just like his mother, Alice Boyd Stockdale, he started writing poetry to move through the grief and into joy and healing.
In this episode you'll hear Lee talk about that journey to joy and healing, how writing brought him close to his father again, the influence of his mother's poetry on his life, the unsung wonder of Alice Notley, and some other fun stories featuring Bing Crosby, Yoko Ono, and Bob Hope.
Location: Lee's living room in Fairview, NC.
Visit Lee's website
Buy his book of poems Gorilla
Watch and listen to Lee read his award winning poem, 'My Dead Father's General Store in the Middle of a Desert'
Mentioned in this epsiode:
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost
Quote from Dante: The Divine Comedy
Midway Books in St. Paul, MN
Where the Roots Reach for Water by Jeffery Smith
James Hillman
Wendell Berry
City Lights Bookstore in Sylva, NC
Grant Stockdale
Can Antioch College Return From the Dead Again?
The Fillmore East
St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery Poetry Project
Patti Smith
Allen Ginsburg
William Burroughs
Gregory Corso
Yoko Ono
CBGB - Bithplace of NYC's Rock, Folk, and Punk Music
Alice Notley
The Village Voice
Robert Wilson
The Talking Heads
the Ramones
Blondie
Are you Jackie Kennedy? by Lee Stockdale
Alice Boyd Stockdale
Humbird Live at Salon Sonics
Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, and Grant Stockdale in England
The Road to Hong Kong
Jack Paar interview Robert Kennedy in 1964
Brian Lamb
St. Mark's Poetry Project Archive
Alice Notley 101
Alice Notley and the Art of Not Giving a Damn
Ada Limon
White Phosphorus by Alice Notley
Samuel Beckett
Anne Waldman
Mary Oliver
Hannah Kahn
Ladies' Home Journal
Young Man, Strolling by Alice Boyd Stockdale
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Our conversation this week is with Castel Sweet: Hip-Hop lover and scholar, Sociologist, Director of Community Engagement at the University of Mississippi, and child of Memphis, Tennessee.
So much good stuff in this episode: Hip-Hop feeling like home. The influence of Big K.R.I.T. and Outkast. The struggle of staying true to yourself. Music opening worlds and reminding you who you are. The disconnect between universities and their local communities. Turning theory into practice. How to make space for everyone. Why representation matters. Sharing knowledge and listening to lived experiences. Consistent curiosity and endless discovery.
Read Castel's Dissertation on hip-hop artists' interaction with their community
Castel's SouthTalks: Does My Message Define My Role?
Check out Castel at TedXUniversityofMississippi
Mentioned in this episode:
Big K.R.I.T.
Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward
Tobacco Road by Common Market
Connect For by Common Market
Rakim
Masta Ace on NPR Tiny Desk
The genius of science: GZA & Science Genius
The Blue Scholars
RA Scion
Nickerson Street Saloon - Vanishing Seattle
Andre 3000 - 1995 Source Awards: 'The South Got Somethin' to Say'
Clipse: 20 Years of Lord Willin'
Three 6 Mafia's influence on hip-hop
8Ball & MJG
Elevators by Outkast
Ludacris
Eliza Edens - 'Ineffable' live in studio
RZA on redefining hip-hip and building generational wealth
Lord Jamar & his contradictory ramblings sum up his soapbox career
The Rural Studio: Educating Citizen Architects
Ways of Being Home and Making Noise ~ The story of a skatepark by Cecilia Cornejo
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Our conversation this week is with Jordan Rushing, Warren County's Old Court House Museum historian and child of Vicksburg, Mississippi.
How can you play and still accomplish something cool? I love that question. We talk in this episode about life-changing teachers, the legacy of Gordon Cotton, learning and work as play, Eva Whitaker Davis and the story of the Old Court House Museum, clandestine county seat swaps, iconic election-day debates on the courthouse lawn, Reconstruction and diversifying Vicksburg, and much more.
This one goes out to all the teachers who sparked my curiosity and imagination. I owe my life to you.
Location: Old Court House Museum | Vicksburg, Mississippi
Visit the musuem!
Visit Vicksburg - The Key to the South
Mentioned in this episode:
How Eva Whitaker Davis Saved a Warren County Institution
PJ McGann
Jonathan Marwil
Gordon Cotton
Bubba Bolm
The Song of the Lark by Willa Cather
Vicksburg National Military Park
B.L.C. Wailes
Seargent Smith Prentiss
Peculiar Digs: The strange life of Washington Green
How Vicksburg almost became the capitol of Mississippi
Annual Lebanese dinner in Vicksburg
Peter Crosby, Warren County's first black sherriff and the Vicksburg Massacre of 1874
Pat Cashman and The Vicksburg Post
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Our conversation this week is with Tema Stauffer - photographer, Associate Professor of Photography at East Tennesse State University, curator, writer, and child of Kalamazoo, MI (and North Carolina, technically). Her most recent work, Southern Fiction, explores settings that shaped the literary imaginations of 20th-century Southern writers. (welcome back to our trusted friend, Eudora Welty!)
This episode will take you many places. Listen to us talk about: The power of just showing up somewhere. Moments of special feelings. The many paths of Southern Fiction. Finding essay writers & serendipity. Artistical influences. The church with no name. Tema's interest in the history of places. The Welty-Evers connection. Driving around and finding out. CITY 2000 police ride-alongs. Bonding with strangers through photography.
Location: Tema's home in Asheville, NC
Check out Tema's Website!
Buy a copy of Southern Fiction & Upstate
Visit current exhibition at ETSU's Reece Museum until March 1st
Visit upcoming exhibition at MTSU's Baldwin Photo Gallery March 10th-April 13th
Follow Tema on Instagram
Mentioned in this episode, for you to explore:
Charles Baxter
Xhenet Aliu
Lauren Rhoades
Case Cep
Furious Hours by Casey Cep
Honoree Fanonne Jeffers
The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois by Honoree Fanonne Jeffers
Eudora Welty House & Garden
One Writer's Beginnings by Eudora Welty
Cecilia Cornejo - Arte la Milpa
Lanesboro, Minnesota
St. Mane Theatre
Humbird
Rowan Oak - Home of William Faulkner
Alice Walker & Eatonton, Georgia
Flannery O'Connor & Andalusia Farm in Milledgeville, Georgia
City Lights Bookstore in Sylva, NC
Reece Museum at East Tennessee State University
Medgar Evers Home
Haunted by a Ghost Town: The Lure of Rodney, Mississippi
William Eggleston
Port Gibson, Mississippi
Fire Engulfs Abandoned North Front Street Building in Hudson
Preserving a Cluster of Fishing Shacks From Hudson's 'Forgotten' Past
The Black Church on PBS
Nan Goldin
Walker Evans
Dorothea Lange
William Christenberry
Carson McCullers
Truman Capote
Where Is the Voice Coming From? by Eudora Welty
CITY 2000 - a record of life in Chicago in the year 2000
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Our conversation this week is with Julian Rankin - Executive Director of the Walter Anderson Museum of Art, former Director of the Center for Art & Public Exchange at the Mississippi Museum of Art, author of Catfish Dream: Ed Scott's Fight for His Family Farm and Racial Justice in the Mississippi Delta, and child of both Mississippi and North Carolina.
Lots of good stuff in this episode. The monumental life of Ed Scott. Learning to listen. Taking the call to adventure. Finding your own voice. The everyday influence of great Southern writers. Quiet contributions to the Civil Rights Movement. The nefarious history of agricultural agencies. And a fitting end to Ed Scott's story.
Location: Walter Anderson Museum of Art | Ocean Springs, MS
Buy and read Julian's book! Catfish Dream: Ed Scott's Fight for his Family Farm and Racial Justice in the Mississippi
Check out the Walter Anderson Museum of Art
Mentioned in this episode, for you to explore:
Willie Morris
Barry Hannah
John Grisham
Square Books
Bill Ferris: The Man Who Shared Our Voices
Inside Larry Brown's Writing Shack
Hunter S. Thompson
Daniel Wallace
Randall Kenan
Tom Rankin
Mississippi Museum of Art
John T. Edge
Pigford v Glickman USDA class action lawsuit
The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin
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We're kicking off 2023 with the wonderful Ellen Rodgers Daniels - Executive Director of the Mississippi Book Festival, Lemurian elder, photographer, and child of Rolling Fork.
This episode is full of good stuff. The magic of books. Ellen's serendipitous path to leading the MS Book Fest. The realness of John Evans and Lemuria. Meeting your heroes as a job. Loving on libraries. Children's authors doing the absolute most. Vibes and civil discourse.
Mississippi most definitely has somethin' goin' on.
Location: Ellen's mystical black home library. Jackson, Mississippi.
Mississippi Book Festival - August 19, 2023
Ellen's Photography
Due South Co-op
Mentioned in this episode, for you to explore:
On Witness and Respair: A Personal Tragedy Followed by Pandemic by Jesmyn Ward
Erosion: Essays of Undoing by Terry Tempest Williams
Imani Perry
W. Ralph Eubanks
Aimee Nezhukumatathil
Kiese Laymon
Mary Miller
James Kirchick
Eddie Glaude
Morgan Jerkins
Ryan Dennis
Dr. Willie Wright
Alice Walker
Fischer Galleries
Mufaro's Beautiful Daughter's by John Steptoe
Anne Fisher Wirth
My Antonia by Willa Cather
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
Beloved by Toni Morrison
Cane by Jean Toomer
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
Rubyfruit Jungle by Rita Mae Brown
Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin
The Birchbark House by Louise Erdrich
Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem
Deacon King Kong & The Good Lord Bird by James McBride
Angie Thomas
Beth Ann Fennelly
Where the Roots Reach for Water by Jeffery Smith
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
Dav Pilkey
Robert Luckett
Reverend H.D. Dennis and Margaret's Grocery
Jericho Brown
Jackson Libraries in Disrepair
Long Overdue, the Bookmobile Is Back
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Our final conversation of 2022 (!) is with W. Ralph Eubanks - acclaimed author, professor at the University of Mississippi, former director of publishing at the Library of Congress, and fellow University of Michigan graduate.
"The bookmobile opened up the world to me". When those wheels hit the gravel on the road to his childhood home, Ralph found refuge in the cool air and stories contained inside. It was in the bookmobile he learned, dreamed, and imagined the world outside of Mississippi - where he escaped the summer heat and warzone of the Civil Rights era. It was also where he first read William Faulkner and thought someday he, too, could become a great Mississippi writer. And he did. Though he left Mississippi, he found his way home again (as Mississippians are wont to do). Like many writers, Ralph takes on the responsibility to tell real stories about his "old home place", to give something back to the people and place that made him.
There's lots of good stuff in this episode. The impact of a bookmobile. Ralph's unique family history. Civil Rights movement & war strategy. The "burning house" of school integration. Myth, memory, and history. Parchman & finding the denominators. And more than a few books for you to read.
Checkout Ralph's work and buy his books!
www.wralpheubanks.com
Mentioned in this episode:
So Long, See You Tomorrow by William Maxwell
Willie Morris
Calmly We Walk through This April's Day by Delmore Schwartz
Square Books in Oxford, MS
Escaping the Summer Heat in A Bookmobile
Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes
Lad: A Dog by Albert Payson Terhune
Waging a Good War: A Military History of the Civil Rights Movement by Thomas E. Ricks
The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin
The Toughest Job: William Winter's Mississippi
Salman Rushdie
The Story of Clyde Kennard
A Place Like Mississippi by Ralph Eubanks
Etheridge Knight
Bob Moses
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