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Posted on September 29, 2024January 3, 2025 by kpdavis

Help Appalachia

the sun rises over the mountains and clouds

Returning from Appalachia ahead of Hurricane Helene

I write seeking to help Appalachia. As I begin to recover from the COVID I brought home with me from my three week trip to Appalachia, I’m finding it hard to discuss all the fun we just had there. I left Asheville last Sunday, September 22, 2024. The weather was fine. I had a near perfect three-day drive home. I got back home Tuesday evening. The storm hit Thursday/Friday. And just like that, those beautiful places I just got to know were devastated. I’m still reeling as I see people’s homes floating down rivers that weren’t there the day before.

I took a lot of sunrise, sunset, and high elevation photos, because for a few days, I stayed in downtown hotels in both Knoxville, Tennessee, and Asheville, North Carolina, which allowed me a birds eye view. I found myself leaping up at all hours to rip the curtains back, ready for some fabulous view. It was my first trip to the Great Smokey Mountains, and I loved every minute of it. I’m glad Linda Parsons made me get out, because I was planning to spend the whole time writing and editing. My one big regret is that I didn’t spend the money to visit the Biltmore Estate.

The situation is so severe around Asheville, in particular, with roads washed out, even whole towns washed away, that it is still hard to communicate with some people. Information from aid organizations is slow percolating, but I’ve been able to find this link to one group who is collecting donations. [Since I wrote this post asking people to help Appalachia we’ve seen amazing resilience. Sad that sometimes a tragedy is what it seems to take to show the best of ourselves.]

Follow this link to a list of needed items with instructions about collection points and other ways to help Appalachia:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1PTFZz8hOvtCE2k2pUlZhA9wcs7SFtSZLYeNZTCPdZg4/edit?usp=sharing

Here’s the United Way of North Carolina, where you can donate directly to the Hurricane Helene recovery fund. https://www.unitedwaync.org/

For up to date news, and lots more photos post Helene, (when we said “help Appalachia” we had no idea we’d see such an amazing outpouring…) try this link: https://www.citizen-times.com/picture-gallery/news/local/2024/09/29/asheville-nc-floods-relief-efforts-continue-after-helene-devastation/75441983007

Sunrise in Knoxville behind the former Marriott Hotel.

Kim at Ijams Nature Preserve in Knoxville

Posted on March 21, 2024January 3, 2025 by kpdavis

Wild Wind – we know who’s in

Wild Wind: Poems and Stories Inspired by the Songs of Robert Earl Keen

edited by Sandra Johnson Cooper and Ron Cooper, with a preface by Willy Braun of Reckless Kelly

We know who’s in this collection, out November 19, 2024

This anthology of poems and short stories is an homage to Texas singer/song-writer Robert Earl Keen, who stands in the songwriter/storyteller tradition of Townes Van Zandt, Guy Clark, John Prine, and Keen’s contemporaries Lyle Lovett and James McMurtry. The poems and short stories here are each inspired by Keen’s songs, some expansions of themes of Keen’s songs, others move in creative directions suggested by the characters in his work. Keen’s songs are impressive for their literary sensibility (he was an English major at Texas A&M University) and have influenced many songwriters as well as authors of fiction and poetry.

Contributors:

Preface: Willy Braun
Poetry: Alan Birkelbach – Rick Campbell – Greg Clary – Andy Coat – Rupert Fike – Carl Freeman – Carol Kraus – karla k. morton – Jeff Newberry – Garrison M. Somers
Fiction: Heath Bowen – Michael Cody – Ron Cooper – Sandra Cooper – Patrick Michael Finn – Scott Gould – Donna Wojnar Dzurilla – Bobby Horecka – Patti Meredity
Memoir: Kim Davis
Screenplay: Janna Jones

South Carolina natives Sandra Johnson Cooper and Ron Cooper have lived in Florida since 1988 and have been fans of Robert Earl Keen for nearly as long. They both teach at the College of Central Florida where Sandra specializes in American literature, and Ron specializes in philosophy and world religions.

Posted on March 21, 2024March 21, 2024 by kpdavis

London Book Fair 2024

t was 1950’s house wife day. At our booth at the London book fair. Thanks to H.A Stories Lucid house press Madville publishing Micheal Nelson Brandy Miller Jennae Elle Beaugard R.L Merril Abeni Celeste And so many other authors

Six Madville Books went to the London Book Fair

Our friends, Jade and Wilnona, the “And I Thought Ladies,” took six or our recent titles to the London Book Fair this year. These are some of the pictures they sent back. We expect a few more, so check back! We wish we could have joined them. It looks like they had a really great time in our tiny 2 meter by 2 meter booth.

Here is an article we just read that does a great job of describing the experience of the London book Fair. That NYT Piece about LBF??

Madville books on display

Gravity Hill by Susanne Davis.
Echoes, or The Insistence of Memory by Tom Shachtman.
After Camus by Jay Neugeboren.
Bicycles of the Gods by Michael Simms.
The Cyclone Release by Bruce Overby, and
The Life of Kim and the Behavior of Men by Rod Davis.

Posted on March 19, 2024March 19, 2024 by kpdavis

Appalachian Studies Conference

Our Madville poets did a fabulous job of representing us at the 47th Annual Appalachian Studies Conference

The theme was, Beloved Community: Pride in Identity, Culture, and Geography, and the conference took place March 7-9, 2024, at Western Carolina University, in Cullowhee, North Carolina. The Madville poets in attendance were Jim Minick (The Intimacy of Spoons), Linda Parsons (Valediction), Darnell Arnoult (Incantations), Pauletta Hansel (Heartbreak Tree), Susan O’Dell Underwood(Genesis Road and Splinter), and Lisa J. Parker (The Parting Glass and This Gone Place). (Dana Wildsmith (With Access to Tools) couldn’t make it.)

This is the first year we’ve attended this conference, but our poet, Jim Minick had this great idea… After all, we have so many wonderful poets from the region, It makes sense for us to participate in regional conferences. And look how happy they all are!