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I’m writing from a world filled by mothers.
Literally everything comes from mothers: every painting, every novel, every song, building, monument — all were created by people who owe their mothers their lives.
I call my mom “Minky” these days. I’m not sure where it started, but it stuck. My kids call her that. She’s even got it stamped across her license plate.
Minky was born in Forrest City, Arkansas. A Delta girl, through and through, who left her family and moved to the River Valley when I was four. Mom’s first job was in Plainview, a half-hour drive south from our new home in Russellville, a world away from the culture she’d grown up with back in Forrest City.
It couldn’t have been easy, leaving behind everything she knew, but Minky never looked back, and thirty-some-odd years later, here we are.
Minky doesn’t have hobbies; she just has me. Her only son. Her only child. Anytime I tell anybody I’m an only kid I always get sideways looks. Every stinkin’ time. But listen, I’m not a punk. Promise. I have Minky to thank for that.
While growing up, my parents served dual roles. They not only had to be “Mom” and “Dad.” They were also big sister, big brother, and best friends.
That bond still remains today.
If I need advice, I call Minky. Good news? Minky. Bad news? Minky. No news? Minky…
You get the picture, the portrait of love my mother painted for me, the example she’s given by living a selfless life, the same sort of existence I get to watch play out every day inside the walls of my own home.
My wife is the other mother in my life.
Mal is different from Minky. We have a joke in my family that I married my dad. Minus some important pieces of human anatomy, it’s not far from the truth.
I wrote a song for Mal shortly after we started dating that includes this line: “She don’t like Valentine’s Day, says a rose is bought to be thrown away.” That pretty much sums up my hardnosed wife of ten years, or at least it sums up her interactions with me.
When it comes to our kids, Mal is a total softy.
I give her crap for this all the time. I chide her for letting our towheaded babies get away with things I would never let them get away with, things she knows she’ll have to pay the price for in the days to come.
Shortly after our first child was born, my dad gave me maybe the single best bit of parenting advice ever: “Don’t do something once you don’t wanna do a million times.”
Mal agrees with this maxim, she knows it’s true, but when our kids cry out in the night, or push for “just one more” cookie, cartoon, etc. — she folds, every single time.
It took me a while to figure out why the strong-willed woman I married can (at times) be so weak in the knees. The answer boils down to blood, bone, and every single cell in her body that went into making our two healthy — and sometimes cantankerous — children.
A mother’s bond is forged nine months ahead of the outside world. It’s biological, unbreakable, and something I’m proud to bear witness to every single day. Between Minky and Mal, I’ve got a front-row seat to love in its rawest form.
To all the Moms out there — Happy Mother’s Day!
Don't Know Tough
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In Denton, Arkansas, the fate of the high school football team rests on the shoulders of Billy Lowe, a volatile but talented running back. Billy comes from an extremely troubled home: a trailer park where he is terrorized by his mother’s abusive boyfriend. Billy takes out his anger on the field, but when his savagery crosses a line, he faces suspension.
Without Billy Lowe, the Denton Pirates can kiss their playoff bid goodbye. But the head coach, Trent Powers, who just moved from California with his wife and two children for this job, has more than just his paycheck riding on Billy’s bad behavior. As a born-again Christian, Trent feels a divine calling to save Billy—save him from his circumstances, and save his soul.
Then Billy’s abuser is found murdered in the Lowe family trailer, and all evidence points toward Billy. Now nothing can stop an explosive chain of violence that could tear the whole town apart on the eve of the playoffs. |
Ozark Dogs
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In this Southern thriller, two families grapple with the aftermath of a murder in their small Arkansas town.
After his son is convicted of capital murder, Vietnam War veteran Jeremiah Fitzjurls takes over the care of his granddaughter, Joanna, raising her with as much warmth as can be found in an Ozark junkyard outfitted to be an armory. He teaches her how to shoot and fight, but there is not enough training in the world to protect her when the dreaded Ledfords, notorious meth dealers and fanatical white supremacists, come to collect on Joanna as payment for a long-overdue blood debt.
Headed by rancorous patriarch Bunn and smooth-talking, erudite Evail, the Ledfords have never forgotten what the Fitzjurls family did to them, and they will not be satisfied until they have taken an eye for an eye. As they seek revenge, and as Jeremiah desperately searches for his granddaughter, their narratives collide in this immersive story about family and how far some will go to honor, defend—or in some cases, destroy it. |
| Previous columns: |
• Writing from a Plane
• Writing from Home
• My second novel’s publication
• A New Marriage Milestone
• An Invitation to the Party
• Writing from a Thunderstorm
• Writing from a Soundbooth
• Writing from “Jazz Beach"
• Writing from the Sabbath
• Writing from somewhere between Little Rock and Russellville
• Writing from my back deck
• Writing from the morning of my thirty-fifth year
• Writing on the day of the college football National Championship
• Writing from the space between breaths
• Writing from 2022
• Writing from the glow of a plastic Christmas tree |
• Writing on a rollercoaster of triumph and disaster
• Writing from the drop-off line at my daughter’s elementary school
• Writing with Thanksgiving on my mind
• Writing from the crowd before the start of a Shovels & Rope show
• Writing from the depths of a post-book-festival hangover
• Writing from the Ron Robinson Theatre
• Writing to you on Halloween Eve
• Writing from my bed on a Saturday morning
• Writing from my office with two darts clenched in my left hand
• Writing from the shade of my favorite tree
• Writing from my desk on a Tuesday morning
• Writing from a pirate ship
• Writing from the airport
• Writing from the hospital
• I'm writing from the water
• Writing from my wife's Honda Pilot
• Writing from my office |
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