Remembering Fred: Frazier, Rash, Burnette
Editor’s Note: A renowned Western North Carolina writer, Charles Frazier burst onto the worldwide literary scene with his seminal 1997 novel “Cold Mountain,” which won the National Book Award for Fiction. In 2023, he released “The Trackers” to widespread acclaim.
I am one of you forever: Remembering WNC literary icon Fred Chappell
In a November 2022 interview with The Smoky Mountain News, storied writer Fred Chappell, a Haywood County native who was 86 at the time, was asked what the culmination of his life meant to him looking back.
Up Moses Creek: I’ll Fly a Ways
It takes something special to draw me out of Moses Creek — there’s so much here to see and do and write about.
This must be the place: ‘Olden times and ancient rhymes, of love and dreams to share’ (Part Two)
Somewhere between the treadmill and the free weights of the complimentary fitness center, my mind started thinking on all the different hotels and cities I’ve found myself in this past year. This go-round it was the Cambria in Columbia, South Carolina.
This must be the place: ‘And when the world seems cold, you got to let your spirit take control’
Every-so-often, my girlfriend, Sarah, and I will find ourselves with an open Monday evening. A wild, rollickin’ weekend in the rearview mirror. The first day of the work week now completed. How ‘bout we motor over to Asheville for some fine Italian food at Vinnie’s on Merrimon Avenue, eh? Sold.
Times have changed, and that’s a good thing
As an adolescent male in the 1970s, you didn’t tell your other male friends you loved them, not at that time, not like the hugs and “love you brother” that is so common today. Just didn’t happen, at least not in the Southern military town of my childhood.
This must be the place: ‘And I thought that I’d found a light to guide me through’
A soothing mid-fall breeze floats across my front porch, through the screen door and into the apartment, ultimately swirling around the writing desk facing a bustling Russ Avenue within sight.
This must be the place: Ode to Anna Marie, ode to the kids of Smith Street (and beyond)
Stepping outside the small log cabin, I took a moment to collect my thoughts. Vast farm fields and ancient dirt in the rural countryside outside of Goldsboro, the cool air of an impending fall was felt with a sense of relief in a place where heat and humidity reign supreme.
This must be the place: ‘The questions of a thousand dreams, what you do and what you see’
It’s never easy to go home. And I think it only seems to get harder, perhaps more abstract and blurry, as one gets older — further and farther between from the starting line, literally and figuratively. Case-in-point, I recently returned home to my native North Country.
This must be the place: ‘A sunbeam’s shining through his hair, fear not to have a care’
It’s 9:54 a.m. Tuesday. I’m sitting at the old wooden kitchen table at my parents’ farmhouse in rural Upstate New York, within close range of the Canadian border, just a few farm fields away from the mighty, ancient Lake Champlain.
