I really don't mind, mind you. I did not write for the book to become, generically, the "great American novel." I don't even know what "the great American novel" means.

Outside, the spring storms had raged. I watched the radar grimly, anticipating the social media reports of tornadoes and floods and loss.

The pear tree in the yard has leafed, shade dappled beneath an increasingly hot sun. Mist rose in the holler last night, turning the...

Cold spring days are special things. Too soon the air will be hot and ragged as summertime seems to arrive earlier each year and so I...

The old Scots-Irish settlers in the Ozarks would know what I was talking about. The Cailleach is a weather-personification deity...

The bitter March wind stirs the red oak leaves on the hillside, leaf litter heavy in the late afternoon. The sky has cleared, temperature...

There are no trophies. No suburban dad stories of the glory days, although I still smile when I remember outrunning the town's basketball ..

The river ice has broken up, white knife edges crushing together against the silt, framing the dark river island trees, smooth maples...

A dark bedroom, a single light. The lamp was a strange thing, heavily weighted, long, spindly neck, rough black charcoal-like texture of...

I had been to the home of Silver Dollar City artist Joe Benjamin. Joe had talked of his pen-and-ink art while his wife Jan dished up bowls..

The man was medium height, but looked tall to me. I was at the window, watching. He wore a brown tweed jacket and had nice shoes, glasses...

Devils Backbone, Devil's Promenade, Devil’s Well, Devil's Den — it is clear the early European settlers in the Ozarks held a preoccupation..

Insider note: Traditional food cans have paper wrappers and paper is made of wood pulp and wood pulp IS something goats eat.

Blank pages can be scary things, just as are blank canvases. There is such fear in getting something wrong. Omission is far safer.

There have been traditional Christmases past, full of bright sun and icy snow and kicking the ice from boots, coming into a warm...

Kindling fires smell different, all dried branches of elm and box elder. Neither are popular trees, especially box elder, as they scatter...

Few know my own wrestling with the holiday, how I loved it as a child, how I feared it as a teenager after one of my cousins was gunned down

Cold night rain beats hard against the clapboard siding, peeling blue and faded behind autumn-dead hydrangea. The hydrangea was planted...

Hallmark autumns are a time of fashionable flannels and hearty pumpkin carving, chilly, cozy nights and crisp, sunny afternoons.

The kitchen was dark, the evening uncharacteristically warm and blustery for so late in the season. Not a good night for a fire...