Under the Kudzu

When I was writing “Dogwood Blues” I had little time to spend tromping through the countryside, but every now and then I felt a call so strong the words no longer came to me. Bone dry and hard as a rock, I couldn’t dig through to the consonants and vowels of my story. That’s when I would hear the seductive whisper of old clothes lines, plowed fields, abandoned barns. Wild blackberries growing over a barbed wire fence. Dark river water swirling around cypress knees. Brody would jump in the SU...