The Roads Out of Appalachia

This is part of the So Far Appalachia book project. If you enjoy what you read, please vist my Kickstarter page (and pass this along to any friends who you think might find this interesting). * * * Growing up, I always considered Appalachia as some mystical place forgotten in time. I say this full well […]

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Clay County: The Beginnings

“Money had value if there was a place to spend it. Salt was life.” — Charles House in Blame it on Salt. Start your story where the action takes place. That’s how I tell stories, and so as I’ve told stories about Clay County throughout the years, they have oftentimes been about the infamous feud. […]

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Kickstarter, Day 1

At 8:30 am this morning, I clicked the Launch button and watched my Kickstarter project aimed at funding the completion of So Far Appalachia go live. The moment was both anticlimactic (no band started playing) and terrifying (the clock started ticking). Years of writing, researching, and editing suddenly became very real, and the fate of […]

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On Feuds, Appalachia, and Reasoning

A few days ago, my former boss and friend posted on Facebook that he considered the National Rifle Association’s rhetoric around the Second Amendment to be primarily driven by race. As you might imagine, this set off quite a debate on Facebook. I don’t want to recount the entire affair so let me summarize a […]

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Welcome

Greetings: I appreciate you stopping by the home of my little project, So Far Appalachia: An American Mythology. Throughout the next few years, I’ll be building creating a multi-media, interactive book about my family, The Bakers of Manchester, Kentucky. We have a long, colorful history and I hope you enjoy reading about it. I’m also […]

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SFA About the Book

In June 1935, Bobby Baker got in his car in Hamilton, Ohio and headed south towards the Central Appalachian town of Manchester, Kentucky, the place his family helped found in early 1800s. Bobby was an enigma. A man bound by generations of family honor and duty, he still managed to spend a great deal of […]

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Notes from the Clay County War

I’ve been in the special collections section of the Berea College archives. Until recently, this school had a large number of files associated with my family and the 100-year feud in Southern Kentucky. Apparently those files are now in Manchester, the County Seat. Still, I found some interesting tidbits in the New York Times: From […]

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