“In fact, the violence that brought turn-of-the-century Clay County national notoriety as a land of feudists was a conflict between two families of highly educated, wealthy elites and their supporters.” — The Road to Poverty: The Making of Wealth and Hardship in Appalachia, by Dwight B. Billings and Kathleen M. Blee Apparently I live in […]
“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. […]
Today is my birthday. I awoke at 6 am, and made my way across the hall and into my den. The stress of raising money for a project through Kickstarter has ruined any chance I have of sleeping, or relaxing, or enjoying. So I retreat to my sanctuary where I’m surrounded. Books, files, and notes […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Writing a book requires a team. I have a great one. Here’s everyone who helped make this project happen.
Out there in the spotlight/You’re a million miles away Every ounce of energy/You try to give away As the sweat pours out your body/Like the music that you play Later in the evening/As you lie awake in bed With the echoes from the amplifiers/Ringin’ in your head You smoke the day’s last cigarette,/Rememberin’ what she […]
I spent the last few days at Berea College, digging through the Appalachian Feuds special collections. There was some good information there. It’s mostly filler material, the backdrop information for the story. But I have 200 pages of material coming to me. The drive down was spectacular. While some folks complain about the flatlands of […]
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 […]