These are tales of fortune and forfeiture, happiness and hazard, love and deceit. Some stories are set in specific times and places but not confined to them. Others arise in the mere vastness of the world and belong anywhere applicable or nowhere definitive. For wherever there is human life, there are the yearnings, dreams, possibilities and impossibilities we call tales and stories. For this reason, I do not think of myself as their creator, but only their author or perhaps their channeler. I say this because the people who come to life in this book do not always behave as I wish and plan. I push and they push back. Which is why I am as surprised as the next person by what they decide to do and who they choose to be. Perhaps their way is best. For if the decisions were left up to me, most likely I …
This profound account of one mother’s riveting day-to-day relentless battle to teach her preteens and teenagers responsibility for their actions, discipline and respect for authority shares the joys of parenting as well as the pitfalls. Bullying and being bullied, teenage pregnancies, disruptions at school and many other unpredictable situations are confronted with cutting edge humor and some highly unexpected and creative punishments that are immediately effective in correcting the problem areas and improving destructive behaviors.
“Sometimes I stop and try to figure out where the stories come from and why I write the way I do. I’m sure much of it is a result of the land I grew up on and the people who were trying to scratch a living from it. If he stays in contact with it long enough, the land will brand a man as surely as the red-hot iron brands a Western calf. I’m sure the flat, almost treeless, bayou studded Delta of my early years, which later was replaced by Mississippi’s rolling, red clay hills, both left their marks on me….My father was a good storyteller and I suppose I picked up some of his talents. There is much satisfaction in telling a good story…” Luke Boyd’s first collection of 25 short stories reflects the folk humor and local color that are hallmarks of Southern writing. His story telling …