Randy Thornhorn's Blog, page 6
July 27, 2015
Yearning for Passion?
I have known legions who say they long for passion with another in their lives, because it has been missing from those partners they have known before.
Then, when they finally encounter and truly, fully, experience such passion it scares them, scares them deeply, so they turn and run away from it.
Then they go back to longing for passion in their lives.
End of story.
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RT
July 23, 2015
One and Two
There’s a jagged hole now
In my heart
So cold the wind blows through
Where once your heart within my heart
Your ring within my ring
Held an everlasting me and you
When we were one and two.
I ask
Forgive the lonesome whistle
Where my heartbeat used to be
The strain of the wind
Wringing through me
The sting of its cold refrain
No song of ours left
No song of ours left
No song of ours left to sing.
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© Thornhorn
July 22, 2015
WICKED TEMPER gets a glorious KIRKUS REVIEW!
“An unnerving literary experience, like finding a fiddleback spider on one’s shoe or a copperhead snake coiled and ready to strike under one’s bed.”
Excerpted from the new Kirkus Review of Wicked Temper by Randy Thornhorn:
Two runaway teenagers go on a crime spree and get lost in a backwoods region of the southern Appalachian Mountains in Thornhorn’s (I Be the Christis, the Kid Beheaded, 2014, etc.) novel.
Thirteen-year-old Tizzy Polk’s father is a tyrannical preacher who’s repeatedly warned her about boys like Matthew “Rebel Yell” Birdnell. The son of a pig farmer, Birdnell sees no future for himself in the mountains and wants out of Cayuga Ridge in the worst way—and when he steals his father’s ’49 Studebaker pickup, Tizzy, searching for some kind of freedom, joins him with a little persuasion. With a stolen gun, the two runaways commit a series of crimes, culminating in a murder, and attempt to evade the law by driving up some backwoods roads that lead to Riddle Top, a “great black crag with bristle hairs” that “gave up sunlight like a jagged miser then quickly stole it back.” When they meet its creepy inhabitants, they quickly realize that the scary stories about the dark mountain are true.
A blend of Southern gothic and hillbilly noir, this story is utterly readable, in large part because of Thornhorn’s masterful use of dialect, rich description, and immersive use of atmospherics. The power of this story undeniably comes from the author’s darkly lyrical voice, and his sinister reimagining of Appalachia virtually comes alive on the page: “One tiny shack gave way to the next, each shack with its small barren field, desolate dead cornrows littered by blackbirds and autumn leaf.” Even minor plot inconsistencies … can’t detract from the overall power of this story. Like the lovechild of William Faulkner and H.P. Lovecraft, Thornhorn, with his unique narrative style and twisted insight into southern life, makes this novel unforgettable.
An unnerving literary experience, like finding a fiddleback spider on one’s shoe or a copperhead snake coiled and ready to strike under one’s bed.
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THE KESTREL WATERS has a NEW COVER!
We be mighty pleased this morning. How about you?
Designed by award-winning graphic artist Dominick Finelle (whose clients have included AT&T, Harlequin, Penguin USA, Simon and Schuster, Scholastic, and Time Warner), here is the new hardcover, paperback, and e-book cover for The Kestrel Waters by Randy Thornhorn?
What do you think of the novel’s completely new look?
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Dominick Finelle
(The July Group)
AWARDS: Art Direction Magazine – Society of Illustrators – Directory of Creative Talent – Master Eagle Family of Companies -National Academy of Fine Arts.
May 22, 2015
Eureka! – THE KESTREL WATERS / The Indie Book Awards 2015
May 12, 2015
Eureka! - THE KESTREL WATERS / The Indie Book Awards 2015
The Kestrel Waters
March 18, 2015
February 24, 2015
ROXIE WATSON Wings Me Warm Again
It’s cold sunrise. I hope the coffee is hot for all you Thornfolk out yonder, wherever you or your yonder might be percolating. It’s a Roxie Watson morning here in Sugar Hill with my speakers cranked up hot and my frost-glazed windowpanes throbbing to Roxie Watson’s country-bluegrass calliope of heartsongs, hellbent boogies, and resurrection shuffles.
Last night was Roxie Watson night at the intimate Red Clay Foundry in Duluth, Gee-Yay. I was there with many other gleeful folk to bask in the musical glow of Roxie Watson as they performed for the pilot episode of Georgia Musication, a live performance and education program featuring local music acts working with Georgia educators. If you wasn’t there you shoulda been, because band members Beth, Lenny, Becky, Linda, and Sonia made a joyful noise, sang with sweet emotion, and rocked the house like only the most sensual and fiery-eyed minstrels can rock it. They were organic. They were road-tempered and welling with passion. They were free, wild, warm, and funny. They were everything they’ve been every time I’ve been graced with Roxie Watson’s wealth of musical gifts: Roxie Watson was as transcendent as a dear friend’s touch on a cold dark night in Georgia.
So. For you what ain’t heard, the news this new day is pure and it is simple.
Roxie Watson is the best damn angel band to come down from on high in nigh onto too many years. These good women wrap you up in gleaming harmonies and carry you on silver wings and strings to soulful places you surely want to go. Theirs is a rhythmic tapestry for all lovers, a tapestry woven with Bee-Wee’s deft mandolin, the pulse of Lenny’s bass guitar. Linda’s razor-sharp lead guitar, and Sonia’s ringing banjo, with Becky’s aching squeezebox (yes, I said squeezebox) to tease at your most tender places. Listening to them you are forever reminded that the wry strands of epiphany and wisdom they weave in song can only come from the knowing loom of lives fully lived and deeply felt.
Yep. I’m wide and awake and sober. And I am here to tell you now. It is sunrise and Roxie Watson is the best damn angel band this boy could ever hope to hear come this morning or any morning, as I kick back on the hindlegs of my dancing kitchen chair.
(photo: Ray Davis)
February 4, 2015
January 22, 2015
Watch What I Do, Not What I Say …
It is true. I’ve learned that people pretty much do what they want to do. Mostly, what they are doing now is the reality they choose. Don’t expect them or the situation to change. If it does, so be it. But don’t base your life or your reality on expectation for others to change their current reality.
Let go. Let be.
People do what they want and are with who they want, the who and what they choose now. Watch what they do, not what they say.
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