I’ve always read like a writer. When I was in college and graduate school, new criticism was the preferred methodology used in literature classes. For me it was a means of discovering how writers got particular effects. And I wanted to write fiction. Although I’ve spent most of my adult life doing research and publishing… Continue Reading
The Tin Box
The relic-like mementos in the box drew Sara in. She carefully lifted the dress, thinned with age, and pressed it to her body. It seemed to be made for her. Smoothing it over her clothes and turning her head as if admiring herself in a mirror, Sara loved the feel of it, the look of… Continue Reading
Theater of Identity, Part Two
My parents were storytellers. One of my father’s favorite tall tales was about a character named Dicey. He could not resist stories of Dicey. If the fish were not biting, he claimed the creature – part dog, part boy – came out of the water and followed him home saying, “Wait for Dicey, wait for… Continue Reading
Identity Formations, Part Two
In Who Can Know the Heart, Henry adopts an alternate identity that he wears like a suit of armor. Henry as Wizard acts like everything is illusion, the world obscured, everyone doubled, split. A consequence of the back-story: the reckless acquisition of mineral rights for the burgeoning steel industry, Wizard tells riddle-like prophetic tales from… Continue Reading
The Bone Spinner
Henry was an angry man, enraged to madness, brokenhearted, sick and tired. There was no treatment for what ailed him. He was well versed in philosophy, science, politics, doctrine, and literature of all sorts, enough to know better than to be superstitious. He also knew root medicines and how to divine knowledge from reading objects… Continue Reading
The Theater of Identity
The ambiguous project of telling a story of oneself is slippery and often revealed only in what is left behind or unsaid. Although my parents had little formal education, learning was valued in our home. My father read the newspaper from cover to cover everyday, and my mother taught Sunday school and studied her lesson… Continue Reading
Running Away
Soren had never felt more insane. She’d gone home thinking a miscarriage was inevitable. That didn’t happen, and now the entire Harpersville gossip-line of several hundred do-gooders couldn’t stop talking. What’s more, the relationship demon was already forcing its way into Soren’s mind. Life had taught her not to count on anyone, for the one… Continue Reading
Exposing the Unquiet Self
When is an identity-marking act activism? Long distance running that is both flight and fight may be such an act, for flight instincts never preclude defiance. Every run isn’t away from a fight; some are toward one. Embracing a fight against status quo interests and flight toward a life not defined by the usual social… Continue Reading
Undercurrents 
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