Rusty Barnes's Blog: Fried Chicken and Coffee, page 39

Anger Burns, by Gary Carter

  There are those among us / sanctimonious pricks, soul searchers, religious fanatics, etc. / who counsel that anger is bad, to be avoided / but let me tell you in no uncertain terms that good old red-ass anger, blind fury, mad as hell is the only way to purge certain feelings / like when […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry...

Andre Dubus in E-format!

Andre Dubus is one of my five favorite writers and has been for nearly twenty years. One of my fondest memories is sitting in Jim Thomson's backyard just chatting with him the one time I met him. This was shortly before he died and I was there ostensibly to sell books, but mostly what I […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry...

Homegrown Tomatoes, poem by Jenifer Lee Wallace

First thing you notice is the color. "Red" doesn't do it justice. This shade only exists in Technicolor. They haunt my dreams in late February, when a foot of snow covers the ground. Not ruby, not scarlet, not cardinal. "Pulsing red" because they beat like hearts on my plate. There are four left. Last harvest […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry...

News in the Redneck Press World

If you look at the dropdown menus at the top left corner of the FCAC home page, you'll notice that Redneck Press now has pages up for each of the chapbooks we'll publish this year as well as the anthology White Trash, which we'll publish in 2012. I want to reiterate, as I have elsewhere, […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry...

What to Expect When Your Wells are Fracked

I said I wasn't going to post much on this anymore, but this article strikes me as helpful. Consider who wrote it and why, and assume that everything in it is probably understatement. At least, that's my suspicion. Disclaimer: This article focuses on the changing sights and sounds you and your neighbors may experience once […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry...

Greece, memoir by Rachel Cann

Once they are born, we fall in love. Irrevocably. The little toes, the little fingers, even the arch to the eyebrows we identify as our own, passed down from generations.  The tiny ear is masterfully perfect, whorls to covet a mother's whispers, the touch of my lips, sometimes electric, brings tears. I am humbled, and […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry...

HWY 78, poem by S.Lee

Just thinking about the time we drove to Athens. It was during an afternoon thunderstorm, it just broke and his foot wouldn't let loose, no not one bit, not even for me. While I breast fed the baby, his friend popped the tops of two cold ones and toasted. Wheels hydroplaning, he steered right into […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry...

Education Pays, fiction by Deana Nantz

Everything was moving at a normal pace until he showed up. Eleventh graders listened to their teacher's unremitting spiel on a work of literature. Miss Sheila Singleton, a first year English teacher, reeked of green skill and floral perfume, and when he arrived, she eagerly dragged out a literature book from a rusty filing cabinet, […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry...

Shutdown, fiction by F. Michael LaRosa

Three months after they were married Johnny Ray Mook's wife welded her thighs together and would not relinquish what lay between them no matter what Johnny said or did. He tried everything he could think of. He told her he loved her. He told her she was the most beautiful woman who had ever been […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry...

Out of the Mountains, Appalachian Stories by Meredith Sue Willis

Here's one to look out for: OUT OF THE MOUNTAINS, APPALACHIAN STORIES By Meredith Sue Willis; Ohio University Press, $24.95 paperback Willis is a native of north central West Virginia; her hometown is in Appalachia. She is fascinated by the region and the image it has in the collective consciousness of the country. The stereotypes […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry...