Story Made Podcast

Our conversation this week is with Julyan Davis - artist, writer, narrative painter of the American South and West, explorer of lost stories, child of England and citizen of the world.

"If you're able to find beauty in what everyone else doesn't consider for a second, there's a great richness in that. In a way you've made your own discovery." In 1988, Julyan wandered into Sotheran's Rare Books in London, England and discovered 'Stars Fell on Alabama' by Carl Carmer. Transfixed by the state's history and a 19th century colony settled by Napoleonic exiles, he followed his curiosity to the source. After a few months spent working odd jobs and saving money, he set off on a great adventure from England to the American South – the untidy land of wistful melancholy that would shape his art and life. He'd eventually settle in the Southern Appalachian Mountains, finding in them a strange kinship and connection to his homelands.

When he was struggling to earn a spot at an art school, Julyan decided to take his own advice. He found the meeting point of all his particular interests and created a life there. He pursued his dream with conviction and certainty for so long that by the time he realized how difficult it would be, it was too late. He was an artist.

In this episode you'll hear Julyan talk about his great adventure from England to Alabama, walking as a lifestyle, finding beauty where others don't look, the never-ending story of American Ghosts, connecting Appalachia and the Scottish borders, the art of creating for yourself, creating a timeless children's story for his son, and much more.

Location: Julyan's home | Asheville, NC

Visit Julyan's Website!

Buy his debut novel, A History of Saints

Mentioned in this episode, for you to explore:

The Mind of the South by W.J. Cash

Excerpts from The Song of the Lark by Willa Cather

The Moviegoer by Walker Percy

Stars Fell on Alabama by Carl Carmer

Carson McCullers

Searching for the Wrong-Eyes Jesus

Caspar David Friedrich

City Lights Bookstore in Sylva, NC

To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Bruce Chatwin: One of the Last Great Explorers

Walking with Werner Herzog

Paris, Texas (1984)

The Story of Picher, Oklahoma

'There's No Memory of the Joy.' Why 40 Years of Superfund Work Hasn't Saved Tar Creek

Cheap Old Houses

Edward Hopper

Andrew Wyeth

Populism and the World of Oz

Dark on Netflix

The Storied South by William Ferris

Helpmate Domestic Violence Services

How Erwin, Tenn. Is Reinventing Its Legacy of Killing Mary The Elephant

The Professor's House by Willa Cather

'Luddite' Teens Don't Want Your Likes

A Good Man is Hard to Find by Flannery O'Connor

Glenis Redmond

'Weather Vane' by Common Market

'Language of My World' by Macklemore

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes

Eugenics and Sex Harmony by Rubin Herman

Landmarks by Robert Macfarlane

Our conversation this week is with Elon Justice - filmmaker, writer, creator of the Appalachian Retelling Project, and child of Pikeville, Kentucky.

"Challenging the narrative of Appalachia - one story at a time." Raised in Eastern Kentucky, Elon heard stories from her family that taught her who she is and where she comes from - and to be proud of it. But she also saw firsthand how negative, steretypical images of her home had the power to cause harm to the people and places she loved. So she decided to do something to change that.

Rooted in co-creation, the Appalachian Retelling Project shares stories that lift unheard voices and give an honest glance into what it means to be from the mountains. The people of Appalachia are tired of others talking about who they are, so this is a space for them to talk back. "Mountains stories, on our own terms" - as they should be told.

In this episode, Elon talks about growing up in Pikeville, the influence of her family, her first recollections of Appalachian stereotypes, moving away for college, her wild and powerful journey to the Massachussetts Institute of Technology (MIT), why she started the retelling project, co-creation and community-based storytelling, and much more. I hope you listen!

Check out The Appalachian Retelling Project website

and elonjustice.com

Mentioned in this episode, for you to explore:

The Brier Sermon – You Must Be Born Again by Jim Wayne Miller

Pikeville Cut-Through drone video

Hillsville Remembered: Public Memory, Historical Silence, and Appalachia's Most Notorious Shoot-Out by Travis Rountree

Justified on Hulu

John Dils

General William Ratliff

Frank Waller

Effie Waller Smith

The Collected Works of Effie Waller Smith

Breaks Interstate Park: The Grand Canyon of the South

BitSource

Beyond Coal: Imagining Appalachia's Future

Diane Sawyer's Hidden America: Children of the Mountains

Billy Ray Cyrus' trip to Kentucky on American Idol

We're not going to watch 'Hillbilly Elegy', and we hope you won't either

100 Days in Appalachia on the legacy of Deliverance

The Moonshiner (1904)

The Dollmaker by Harriette Arnow (book, 1954)

The Dollmaker (movie, 1984)

Katerina Cizek

Collective Wisdom - Co-Creating Media for Equity and Justice by Katerina Cizek and William Uricchio

Sarah Wolozin

Elaine McMillion Sheldon

Hollow - An Interactive Documentary

Our conversation this week is with Suzi Altman: photographer, caretaker of folk-art treasure Margaret's Grocery, and Mississippian by way of Youngstown, OH and New York City.

"I couldn't just let that be forgotten or overlooked." When Suzi moved to Mississippi, she received the gifts of friendship with James Meredith, "Preacher" Dennis, and Margaret Rogers Dennis. She didn't take them for granted, working tirelessly to honor, preserve, and amplify James' rightful place in history and save iconic folk-art site Margaret's Grocery. In spite of everything, Suzi keeps going because she keeps her promises. She doesn't wait for the miracle. She sees it and shows up for it every day.

In this episode you'll listen to Suzi's journey to Mississippi, how a photograph started a special friendship with James Meredith, the simple beauty of Preacher and Margaret, her fight to save Margaret's Grocery and her own life, the power of saying 'yes', and much more.

Location: Suzi's home in Brandon, Mississippi.

Suzi Altman's website

The Story of Margaret's Grocery in Vicksburg, Mississippi

Donate to help Save Margaret's Grocery

Mentioned in this episode:

'Tell Me a Story' by Robert Penn Warren

David Milch - Every Story is a "Showing Up"

Brink Lindsey's "The Permanent Problem"

John Maynard Keynes

Man's Search for Meaning by Victor Frankl

Lorelei Books in Vicksburg, MS

40 Years After Infamy, Ole Miss Looks to Reflect and Heal

The Rainbow Room at the Rockefeller Center

Maude Schuyler Clay

Eyes on Mississippi: A Fifty-Year Chronicle of Change by Bill Minor

Willie Tankersley

Dan Rather Interview with James Meredith

Oral history interview with 'Chooky' Falkner

Sacred Space: Photographs from the Mississippi Delta by Tom Rankin

Anson Sheldon, pro-segregation rioter at the University of Mississippi in 1962

Proud to Call Mississippi Home by Checky Herrington

Lemuria Books in Jackson, MS

Derrick Bell, The Man Behind Critical Race Theory

Joe Minter's African Village in America

Our conversation this week is with Lee Stockdale - acclaimed poet, Army veteran, and winner of the 2022 United Kingdom National Poetry Prize.

For 10 years, Lee felt a slab on his head - to infinity in every direction - weighing him down. His father, Grant Stockdale, was close friends with John F. Kennedy and, overcome by grief, jumped to his death ten days after the assassination. Due to the shame, stigma, and guilt, he didn't talk about it. But with the help of an extraordinary therapist, a chance enounter with Patti Smith, and cab ride with Jackie Kennedy, Lee felt the weight lift; the loneliness give way to connection. He started doing the things his father did. He finished college, got married, had children, and built a life worth living. And just like his mother, Alice Boyd Stockdale, he started writing poetry to move through the grief and into joy and healing.

In this episode you'll hear Lee talk about that journey to joy and healing, how writing brought him close to his father again, the influence of his mother's poetry on his life, the unsung wonder of Alice Notley, and some other fun stories featuring Bing Crosby, Yoko Ono, and Bob Hope.

Location: Lee's living room in Fairview, NC.

Visit Lee's website

Buy his book of poems Gorilla

Watch and listen to Lee read his award winning poem, 'My Dead Father's General Store in the Middle of a Desert'

Mentioned in this epsiode:

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost

Quote from Dante: The Divine Comedy

Midway Books in St. Paul, MN

Where the Roots Reach for Water by Jeffery Smith

James Hillman

Wendell Berry

City Lights Bookstore in Sylva, NC

Grant Stockdale

Can Antioch College Return From the Dead Again?

The Fillmore East

St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery Poetry Project

Patti Smith

Allen Ginsburg

William Burroughs

Gregory Corso

Yoko Ono

CBGB - Bithplace of NYC's Rock, Folk, and Punk Music

Alice Notley

The Village Voice

Robert Wilson

The Talking Heads

the Ramones

Blondie

Are you Jackie Kennedy? by Lee Stockdale

Alice Boyd Stockdale

Humbird Live at Salon Sonics

Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, and Grant Stockdale in England

The Road to Hong Kong

Jack Paar interview Robert Kennedy in 1964

Brian Lamb

St. Mark's Poetry Project Archive

Alice Notley 101

Alice Notley and the Art of Not Giving a Damn

Ada Limon

White Phosphorus by Alice Notley

Samuel Beckett

Anne Waldman

Mary Oliver

Hannah Kahn

Ladies' Home Journal

Young Man, Strolling by Alice Boyd Stockdale

Our conversation this week is with Castel Sweet: Hip-Hop lover and scholar, Sociologist, Director of Community Engagement at the University of Mississippi, and child of Memphis, Tennessee.

So much good stuff in this episode: Hip-Hop feeling like home. The influence of Big K.R.I.T. and Outkast. The struggle of staying true to yourself. Music opening worlds and reminding you who you are. The disconnect between universities and their local communities. Turning theory into practice. How to make space for everyone. Why representation matters. Sharing knowledge and listening to lived experiences. Consistent curiosity and endless discovery.

Read Castel's Dissertation on hip-hop artists' interaction with their community

Castel's SouthTalks: Does My Message Define My Role?

Check out Castel at TedXUniversityofMississippi

Mentioned in this episode:

Big K.R.I.T.

Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward

Tobacco Road by Common Market

Connect For by Common Market

Rakim

Masta Ace on NPR Tiny Desk

The genius of science: GZA & Science Genius

The Blue Scholars

RA Scion

Nickerson Street Saloon - Vanishing Seattle

Andre 3000 - 1995 Source Awards: 'The South Got Somethin' to Say'

Clipse: 20 Years of Lord Willin'

Three 6 Mafia's influence on hip-hop

8Ball & MJG

Elevators by Outkast

Ludacris

Eliza Edens - 'Ineffable' live in studio

RZA on redefining hip-hip and building generational wealth

Lord Jamar & his contradictory ramblings sum up his soapbox career

The Rural Studio: Educating Citizen Architects

Ways of Being Home and Making Noise ~ The story of a skatepark by Cecilia Cornejo

Our conversation this week is with Jordan Rushing, Warren County's Old Court House Museum historian and child of Vicksburg, Mississippi.

How can you play and still accomplish something cool? I love that question. We talk in this episode about life-changing teachers, the legacy of Gordon Cotton, learning and work as play, Eva Whitaker Davis and the story of the Old Court House Museum, clandestine county seat swaps, iconic election-day debates on the courthouse lawn, Reconstruction and diversifying Vicksburg, and much more.

This one goes out to all the teachers who sparked my curiosity and imagination. I owe my life to you.

Location: Old Court House Museum | Vicksburg, Mississippi

Visit the musuem!

Visit Vicksburg - The Key to the South

Mentioned in this episode:

How Eva Whitaker Davis Saved a Warren County Institution

PJ McGann

Jonathan Marwil

Gordon Cotton

Bubba Bolm

The Song of the Lark by Willa Cather

Vicksburg National Military Park

B.L.C. Wailes

Seargent Smith Prentiss

Peculiar Digs: The strange life of Washington Green

How Vicksburg almost became the capitol of Mississippi

Annual Lebanese dinner in Vicksburg

Peter Crosby, Warren County's first black sherriff and the Vicksburg Massacre of 1874

Pat Cashman and The Vicksburg Post

Our conversation this week is with Tema Stauffer - photographer, Associate Professor of Photography at East Tennesse State University, curator, writer, and child of Kalamazoo, MI (and North Carolina, technically). Her most recent work, Southern Fiction, explores settings that shaped the literary imaginations of 20th-century Southern writers. (welcome back to our trusted friend, Eudora Welty!)

This episode will take you many places. Listen to us talk about: The power of just showing up somewhere. Moments of special feelings. The many paths of Southern Fiction. Finding essay writers & serendipity. Artistical influences. The church with no name. Tema's interest in the history of places. The Welty-Evers connection. Driving around and finding out. CITY 2000 police ride-alongs. Bonding with strangers through photography.

Location: Tema's home in Asheville, NC

Check out Tema's Website!

Buy a copy of Southern Fiction & Upstate

Visit current exhibition at ETSU's Reece Museum until March 1st

Visit upcoming exhibition at MTSU's Baldwin Photo Gallery March 10th-April 13th

Follow Tema on Instagram

Mentioned in this episode, for you to explore:

Charles Baxter

Xhenet Aliu

Lauren Rhoades

Case Cep

Furious Hours by Casey Cep

Honoree Fanonne Jeffers

The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois by Honoree Fanonne Jeffers

Eudora Welty House & Garden

One Writer's Beginnings by Eudora Welty

Cecilia Cornejo - Arte la Milpa

Lanesboro, Minnesota

St. Mane Theatre

Humbird

Rowan Oak - Home of William Faulkner

Alice Walker & Eatonton, Georgia

Flannery O'Connor & Andalusia Farm in Milledgeville, Georgia

City Lights Bookstore in Sylva, NC

Reece Museum at East Tennessee State University

Medgar Evers Home

Haunted by a Ghost Town: The Lure of Rodney, Mississippi

William Eggleston

Port Gibson, Mississippi

Fire Engulfs Abandoned North Front Street Building in Hudson

Preserving a Cluster of Fishing Shacks From Hudson's 'Forgotten' Past

The Black Church on PBS

Nan Goldin

Walker Evans

Dorothea Lange

William Christenberry

Carson McCullers

Truman Capote

Where Is the Voice Coming From? by Eudora Welty

CITY 2000 - a record of life in Chicago in the year 2000

Our conversation this week is with Julian Rankin - Executive Director of the Walter Anderson Museum of Art, former Director of the Center for Art & Public Exchange at the Mississippi Museum of Art, author of Catfish Dream: Ed Scott's Fight for His Family Farm and Racial Justice in the Mississippi Delta, and child of both Mississippi and North Carolina.

Lots of good stuff in this episode. The monumental life of Ed Scott. Learning to listen. Taking the call to adventure. Finding your own voice. The everyday influence of great Southern writers. Quiet contributions to the Civil Rights Movement. The nefarious history of agricultural agencies. And a fitting end to Ed Scott's story.

Location: Walter Anderson Museum of Art | Ocean Springs, MS

Buy and read Julian's book! Catfish Dream: Ed Scott's Fight for his Family Farm and Racial Justice in the Mississippi

Check out the Walter Anderson Museum of Art

Mentioned in this episode, for you to explore:

Willie Morris

Barry Hannah

John Grisham

Square Books

Bill Ferris: The Man Who Shared Our Voices

Inside Larry Brown's Writing Shack

Hunter S. Thompson

Daniel Wallace

Randall Kenan

Tom Rankin

Mississippi Museum of Art

John T. Edge

Pigford v Glickman USDA class action lawsuit

The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin

We're kicking off 2023 with the wonderful Ellen Rodgers Daniels - Executive Director of the Mississippi Book Festival, Lemurian elder, photographer, and child of Rolling Fork.

This episode is full of good stuff. The magic of books. Ellen's serendipitous path to leading the MS Book Fest. The realness of John Evans and Lemuria. Meeting your heroes as a job. Loving on libraries. Children's authors doing the absolute most. Vibes and civil discourse.

Mississippi most definitely has somethin' goin' on.

Location: Ellen's mystical black home library. Jackson, Mississippi.

Mississippi Book Festival - August 19, 2023

Ellen's Photography

Due South Co-op

Mentioned in this episode, for you to explore:

On Witness and Respair: A Personal Tragedy Followed by Pandemic by Jesmyn Ward

Erosion: Essays of Undoing by Terry Tempest Williams

Imani Perry

W. Ralph Eubanks

Aimee Nezhukumatathil

Kiese Laymon

Mary Miller

James Kirchick

Eddie Glaude

Morgan Jerkins

Ryan Dennis

Dr. Willie Wright

Alice Walker

Fischer Galleries

Mufaro's Beautiful Daughter's by John Steptoe

Anne Fisher Wirth

My Antonia by Willa Cather

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

Beloved by Toni Morrison

Cane by Jean Toomer

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

Rubyfruit Jungle by Rita Mae Brown

Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin

The Birchbark House by Louise Erdrich

Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem

Deacon King Kong & The Good Lord Bird by James McBride

Angie Thomas

Beth Ann Fennelly

Where the Roots Reach for Water by Jeffery Smith

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle

Dav Pilkey

Robert Luckett

Reverend H.D. Dennis and Margaret's Grocery

Jericho Brown

Jackson Libraries in Disrepair

Long Overdue, the Bookmobile Is Back

Our final conversation of 2022 (!) is with W. Ralph Eubanks - acclaimed author, professor at the University of Mississippi, former director of publishing at the Library of Congress, and fellow University of Michigan graduate.

"The bookmobile opened up the world to me". When those wheels hit the gravel on the road to his childhood home, Ralph found refuge in the cool air and stories contained inside. It was in the bookmobile he learned, dreamed, and imagined the world outside of Mississippi - where he escaped the summer heat and warzone of the Civil Rights era. It was also where he first read William Faulkner and thought someday he, too, could become a great Mississippi writer. And he did. Though he left Mississippi, he found his way home again (as Mississippians are wont to do). Like many writers, Ralph takes on the responsibility to tell real stories about his "old home place", to give something back to the people and place that made him.

There's lots of good stuff in this episode. The impact of a bookmobile. Ralph's unique family history. Civil Rights movement & war strategy. The "burning house" of school integration. Myth, memory, and history. Parchman & finding the denominators. And more than a few books for you to read.

Checkout Ralph's work and buy his books!

www.wralpheubanks.com

Mentioned in this episode:

So Long, See You Tomorrow by William Maxwell

Willie Morris

Calmly We Walk through This April's Day by Delmore Schwartz

Square Books in Oxford, MS

Escaping the Summer Heat in A Bookmobile

Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes

Lad: A Dog by Albert Payson Terhune

Waging a Good War: A Military History of the Civil Rights Movement by Thomas E. Ricks

The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin

The Toughest Job: William Winter's Mississippi

Salman Rushdie

The Story of Clyde Kennard

A Place Like Mississippi by Ralph Eubanks

Etheridge Knight

Bob Moses