Books of Note: “Can’t Shake the Dust”; “Faulkner, Welty, Wright”; and “Before We Left the Land”

Can’t Shake the Dust Can’t Shake the Dust (Regal House Publishing 2024) by C.H. Hooks employs three points of view to paint a full picture of a dysfunctional family in South Georgia. The alcoholic father and son are obsessed with racing—even though the father lost a leg in a racetrack accident. The recovering addict mother […]

“To Free the Captives: A Plea for the American Soul” by Tracy K. Smith

Tracy K. Smith had already been awarded a Pulitzer Prize and appointed to a second term as Poet Laureate of the United States when she did a reading at my local library (Arlington, Va.) Although I had read her warm and inviting poetry, I was not prepared for the way she pulled me into a […]

Dreama Frisk

Dreama Frisk, born and raised on McCann’s Run, WV, won first place in the Northern Virginia Writers poetry contest (2021). She also convened Ice Writers in Romney, WV. Her poetry collection, Ivory Hollyhock is on reserve in Arlington, VA Library Writers Center, cited as “a slice of history and its importance to the understanding of Appalachian […]