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I’m writing from Witherspoon Hall, Room 151.
It’s not much bigger than a walk-in closet, but it’s all mine. My brand-new office for my brand-new gig as the “Writer in Residence” at Arkansas Tech University.
I’ve been gunning for this job (or something similar) for longer than I’ve been penning novels. Ever since I stepped foot in Dr. Johnny Wink’s office back in the early 2000’s and saw the Brett Favre poster stapled to the ceiling, the shelves of tattered books, the dinosaurs, the root beer bottles, and too many other knick knacks to count — I knew I wanted a setup like that.
As a result, I went about constructing one office after another. Every apartment or house we’ve ever inhabited has had some sort of office, each one my fledgling attempt to create the magic I’d felt while studying under Dr. Wink at Ouachita Baptist University.
My personal office in our basement now has its own brand of magic. It’s got a lake view, a Persian carpet, a black cat and a blue-eyed dog. It’s quiet down there, especially when the kids are at school or asleep. It’s a great place to create, but there’s always been something missing, something that makes that space different from Johnny’s realm.
And that something is people.
At this very moment, there are people outside my campus office, other professors with classic movie posters tacked to their doors and folders full of “free poems” hanging from their walls.
The similarities between Arkansas Tech’s English Department and Ouachita’s English Department (aka “The Bugtruck”) are uncanny. I told my Department Head Dr. Emily Hoffman that the first day I met her. I told her I felt like I’d been transported back in time. She laughed it off, saying, “I think all English Departments are about like this.”
I hope she’s right.
I hope there are magical places like this tucked away in every college campus across the country, with offices stuffed full of books and people who still read and love them.
I haven’t gotten to meet many of the other professors yet, but the one professor I do know, I met long before I ever signed up to be the writer in residence.
Right after I moved back to Russellville, I looked up Dr. Carl Brucker and sent him an email. I told him I was a writer (even though I didn’t have a single published piece to my name) and that I’d love to come chat if he had time.
Much to my surprise, Dr. Brucker responded and extended an open invitation to the English Department. When I finally stepped inside his office, I spotted a plastic skeleton dangling over his desk. There were framed stamp collections on the walls. And books. Titles I recognized. Authors I loved. I was so mesmerized — so shocked by the flood of Bugtruck memories — I told Dr. Brucker that his office felt like home.
Looking back, I realize that was a strange thing to say, or at least it was then.
Not so much now.
Now, I’m two doors down from Dr. Brucker’s office, the one that reminds me so much of where this whole wild writing journey began.
I still have my office in the basement. It’s not going anywhere. I still need a quiet space to create. This new office serves a different purpose, though. This office is for the students who will arrive next week, the 16 brave souls who’ve signed up for my Creative Writing class.
For the last few years, I’ve written with the door closed, blocking out the world so I could build new ones. I’m ready for a change now, a new challenge, a reason to open the door and share the magic that was once gifted to me.
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: Coco
• Writing from the Beach
• Writing From: Crooked Creek
• Writing from a Nursing Home
• Writing from a Firework Tent
• Writing from a Boat
• Writing from the Stars
• Writing from the Pool
• Writing from the Kitchen
• Writing from Summer
• Writing from Kindergarten
• Writing from Mom
• 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
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• 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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