This series features writings developed in Free River Press workshops conducted in west Tennessee and eastern Arkansas. Subjects include cotton farming, juke joints, share cropping, Baptist revivals, the blues, the Mississippi River, country stores as community centers, and more. Black and white voices mix in these episodes to recount the vanishing folkways and hard core poverty of this region.

Some stories from this series first appeared in Dirt & Duty: How I Came to Love the Land and Loathe Farming by Murray Hudson (Free River Press 1992); Fishin’, Fightin’, Feedin’ and Farmin’ by Jack Hudson (Free River Press 2000), and American Mosaic: Prose and Poetry by Everyday Folk (Oxford University Press 1999).

Pictured at right: Writing workshop participants at Stax Recording Studio in Memphis, TN.

Episodes from this category include: Part 1: Farming & Rural Life, Part 2: Farming & Folkways, Part 3: Lucky Lacy, and Part 4: MS Delta Mix.