Rusty Barnes's Blog: Fried Chicken and Coffee, page 51

Aphelia and Leigh, fiction by Kyle Hemmings

We were listening to Doodles Weaver crack jokes on Rudy Vallee's radio show when it happened. We were catching dust from the open car windows, the dry wind from the Black Mesa. Maybe if Aphelia hadn't driven her father's rickety box-of-metal-on-wheels so hard, so reckless, the one she stole, along with his police revolver, it wouldn't have broken down. Maybe if she didn't hold up the pimple-faced kid shakin' in his knickers at the grocery store back in Reynes for a bag of god-darn...

High Cotton, by Barrett Hathcock

When they cotton dive, the boys become serious. They coil into themselves, squatting on the lip of the metal cotton bins, and they thrust their bodies into the air. The boys go for distance, they go for height, but their main concern is arc. They're trying to pierce the cotton deeply and completely. So, against the sunset, they curve together like dolphins into the ocean, and the cotton catches and folds around them as they disappear beneath, swimming into the soft waves, bits of husk...

History as a Weapon: The Question of Class, by Dorothy Allison

 Source: Berry CollegeMany years ago, when I first began teaching writing, I had the opportunity to design an introductory writing (essay) course, in which we read and discussed theory and criticism as well as original creative works. I thought for a long time about what I might do. I had done similar courses in the past,with safe topics like good and evil as seen through technological advances,that kind of thing. I wanted to branch out and give my students--mostly upper-class kids--something...

Jim Harrison's Passions (interview)

Jim Harrison is a touchstone writer for me,and I haven't had the opportunity to see and read many current interviews.

When Trees Pop, by Helen Losse

Two men stand, fists clenched,inside a ring formed by other men.The other men cheer the two men on,while the man knocks another man down.
  Nearby, at an overpass, several boysthrow sand and shout the word queerat certain other boys.  Several womenstand shoulder to shoulder, seemingly calm.
But as they turn, one woman bites anotherwoman on her tongue.  Dusk then settles onthe right of way.  Tall evergreens and deciduoustrees turn black.  A cool wind  rocks the bird house,
rustles tree branc

Silas House Reads from his Forthcoming Novel, Eli the Good

I have my copy pre-ordered; you should too.

On Cadillac Mountain, by Nathan Graziano

On the night Darla died, Wayne was sitting at the kitchen table, washing down a couple of her Percocets with a cold Budweiser, when it he slapped him like a strip of leather across his bearded cheek. He knew. That's how he describes it to his son D.J., just out of Y.D.C., who is sitting across from him at the same table, one year later. Of course, Dwayne points out, he didn't know she would die ten minutes from that moment—as it would happen—but he knew it would be soon, before the sun came up.

Fla. doc fired over 'doughnuts equal death' sign

Would anyone have complained if it was Krispy Kreme?

PENSACOLA, Fla. — Dr. Jason Newsom railed against burgers, french fries, fried chicken and sweet tea in his campaign to promote better eating in a part of the country known as the Redneck Riviera. He might still be leading the charge if he had only left the doughnuts alone.

A 38-year-old former Army doctor who served in Iraq, Newsom returned home to Panama City a few years ago to run the Bay County Health Department and launched a one-man war on

The Pissed-off Poor Appalachian White. . .

Here's something to think about: how many pissed-off middle and lower-class people, not just Appalachian natives, are out there? Quite a few, I'd guess. And we don't have to wonder about how they feel, because articles like this one by Kai Wright make the whole shooting match pretty clear. Thanks to Connie May Fowler who made me aware of this on Facebook.

If ever there was a "teachable moment" about race in modern America, now is it. With the birthers and the reparations conspiracy theories and t

My Friend is Dying, fiction by Matt Baker

It didn't take long for word to get around that our buddy Pooter was dying of lung cancer. Some of the guys got to talking one day and decided we should drive the four hours to go and visit him. Earl knew where Pooter lived so we agreed to meet at his house around eight on Saturday morning. I hadn't talked to Earl in six years. But I had called him up and he gave me directions to his house and told me he'd drive the lead car down to Pooter's.

I'm early and Earl is wiping Armor-all on his tire