“The Toothbrush”
July 16th, 2019 | by Newt Rayburn
A couple of nights ago, I had one of those parenting moments that seemed like a scene from a book,
Browsing the "Creative Writing" Category
“Color Blind Advice at the Seaside”: A short story by Vera P.
July 25th, 2018 | by Nature Humphries
“A change is coming.” Vicky sang that blues song all day, “A change is coming, but I don’t know what
The Way We Live Now
August 8th, 2016 | by Brittain Thompson
Written by: Charles Ramsay McCrory The day her summer-long depression lifted, Julie announced that she was writing a novel, a
Magnolia Vagabond No. 12: Mythical Mississippi
May 18th, 2016 | by Rafael Alvarez
“Watching Son House perform bottleneck guitar was akin to seeing a locomotive on a downhill run…” – Jas Obrecht, blues
The Great Magnolia Vagabond No. 11: Mississippi Meat Man
May 8th, 2016 | by Rafael Alvarez
I took some criticism for this bit of travelogue. Not for participating–after all, the Meat Man was giving away advice
Marc Ribot, Part Three: When Irony Wears Thin
March 28th, 2016 | by Rafael Alvarez
“The melancholic music of Negro American folk origin, the blues emerged slowly at the turn of the 19th century from
Oxford Writes: A New Group for Writers
March 20th, 2016 | by Nature Humphries
Oxford Writes is a single-day writing event and the brainchild of Mississippi native and Oxford writer, Jeff Roberson. While driving
The Great Magnolia Vagabond: Buzzed Up In Oxford
March 16th, 2016 | by Rafael Alvarez
We were pulled over by about six police cars just outside downtown Oxford not long after a young woman on
The Great Magnolia Vagabond No. 9 / 1993: Schooled by “Rule” in Holly Springs
February 10th, 2016 | by Brittain Thompson
Some two decades after first hiding in a bedroom closet in the middle of the day when some Betty’s husband came home
Poem: “Muscadines” by James Tighe
January 15th, 2016 | by TLV News
“Muscadines” Muscadines, muscadines Lenten-purple fruit of the land the supreme bunchless grape Muscadines, muscadines the word itself derived from the
Croutons, Bread Crumbs, Central heating, and Such
January 14th, 2016 | by TLV News
In Russia we have a great respect for bread. We call it “Father,” say “Bread is the staff of life,” take
Poem: “Like Sun” by Caleb Fisher-Wirth
January 13th, 2016 | by TLV News
“Like Sun” I don’t remember this: drooling in my crib, the mom whose name I didn’t yet know, sipping
Poem: “One-Way Song” by Elizabeth Tettleton
January 12th, 2016 | by TLV News
“One-Way Song” Not the flyers brightly placed, suspiciously conspicuous for all to observe. Not her eyes smeared with shadow, base
Bonerama in Baltimore: New Orleans Jazz Festival North
January 11th, 2016 | by Rafael Alvarez
In the 1962 movie Kid Galahad, Elvis Presley belted it out like so. “A poor man wants the oyster, a rich
Marc Ribot, Way Down South: Part One
January 9th, 2016 | by Rafael Alvarez
Marc Ribot, the well-traveled guitarist best known for his work with Tom Waits and the Lounge Lizards, laments that he
Little Willie John: Blue Fever in Search of the Silver Screen
December 18th, 2015 | by Rafael Alvarez
“Sugarman done fly away, Sugarman done gone …” – Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon The confounding and brilliant novel Song
The Great Magnolia Vagabond: Rolling Fork/ 1997
December 8th, 2015 | by Rafael Alvarez
“Muddy’s actual birthplace [was not Rolling Fork but] to the west and north of there… Issaquena, pronounced “Essaquena,” the initial
Short Story: “24 Hours in the Delta” (by Marie Short)
November 24th, 2015 | by TLV News
First of all, this story is 100% true. My Daddy died on a Wednesday—the night before Thanksgiving. This isn’t about
Poem: “Paths” by Caleb Fisher-Wirth
November 23rd, 2015 | by TLV News
“Paths” I used to be so bored with my father’s walks in the woods And never understand why we
A Manual For Cleaning Women Lucia Berlin & the American Short Story: Part Two
November 23rd, 2015 | by Rafael Alvarez
“Their agate eyes opened to reflect a pinpoint of dazzle, closed again…” The description of the eyes of cranes
Turkey Necks: A Tutwiler Thanksgiving
November 23rd, 2015 | by Rafael Alvarez
“ …we didn’t have no place to go, so we just walked around and lived in them woods… we were
Poem: “Confusion (For Lindsey)” by Klare Annette
November 17th, 2015 | by TLV News
Confusion (For Lindsey) I don’t deserve this punishment But there is no escape I used to bounce around this town
When I First Stepped Foot In Mississippi: Greenville Bound, 1984
November 2nd, 2015 | by Rafael Alvarez
Back in 1984—when Stevie Ray Vaughn supplied the biggest bang to the blues since hippies mixed acid with the mud—I was
“A Manual for Cleaning Women”: The Stories of Lucia Berlin, Part One
October 20th, 2015 | by Rafael Alvarez
The name kept coming to me near the end of the summer. Lucia Berlin. Short story writer. On NPR, in
The Great Magnolia Vagabond – Part 6
October 7th, 2015 | by Rafael Alvarez
This is the tale—as brief as it takes the evening sun to set in Avalon, Mississippi—about a bluesman, a Nobel
Bob Koester: The Man Behind Delmark Records’ Seven Decades of Jazz & Blues
September 21st, 2015 | by Rafael Alvarez
Though I rarely play tapes, this summer I bought four, still-in-the-cellophane cassettes at Bob Koester’s Jazz Record Mart—27 East Illinois
The Great Magnolia Vagabond – Part 5
September 9th, 2015 | by Rafael Alvarez
I passed through Mississippi twice in early 2005, headed west from Baltimore to Los Angeles in February and then again
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