James Fork of the White – Finalist in National Book Award Competition

 Uncategorized  No Responses »
Jun 222019
 

We are excited to announce that James Fork of the White: Transformation of an Ozark River has earned national recognition! We recently received notice that our book is a finalist in the Regional Non-Fiction category of the 2019 Next Generation Indie Book Awards, the world’s largest not-for-profit book award program for independent publishers. These awards are judged by leaders of the book publishing industry including many with long careers at major publishing houses.

 

 

 

 

 

James Fork of the White’s 352 pages describe a celebrated Ozark float stream, which has endured challenges as Springfield, Missouri, the largest city in the Ozarks, is within its watershed. Research for this book included  exploration along back roads, feeder creeks, mill sites, fishing hot spots and flating past towering bluffs. The James is a classic Ozark stream that just happens to course through a major metropolitan area. Lessons learned along its length and through its watershed will apply to other streams as they too face the pressures of increased usage.

Even though transformed and changing, the James is in many places still scenic; where it lacks wilderness esthetics, its history remains intriguing.

Leland and I have collaborated on a dozen books on the Ozarks or pop culture. Our earlier river book, Damming the Osage: The Conflicted Story of Lake of the Ozarks and Truman Reservoir, was awarded a silver medal by the Independent Publishers’ Book Awards in 2013.

Our next book, Lover’s Leap Legends: From Sappho of Lesbos to Wah-Wah-Tee of Waco, will be published in February 2020. For the past three years, we have delved deeply into a remarkable sub-genre of legend and lore (“fakelore” some call it) tracing the source of the apocryphal stories attached to some of our most scenic landscape. In 352 pages with hundreds of color images (contemporary photographs as well as vintage images), we track these tales across America and to far flung precipices from Guam to Spain and points in between.

James Fork of the White and all our books are available on this website, on amazon.com and at Barnes & Noble. We’ll let you know when Lover’s Leap Legends is published

LOVER’S LEAPs still make the news

 Uncategorized  No Responses »
Feb 092019
 

Among the true delights of research for our upcoming book, Lover’s Leap Legends: From Sappho of Lesbox to Wah-Wah-Tee of Waco, was traveling to scenic, even spectacular, locations to take photos.  One of our first photo safaris was to Georgia, Alabama, and Tennessee – where we too visited Rock City’s fabled Lover’s Leap. My trusty Google Alerts just brought us this

Mystery couple in Rock City marriage proposal photo sought

New book in the works – LOVER’S LEAP LEGENDS: Sappho of Lesbos to Wah-Wah-Tee of Waco

 Uncategorized  No Responses »
Apr 202018
 

We have a new book in the works – Lover’s Leap Legends; Sappho of Lesbos to Wah-Wah-Tee of Waco. Lover’s Leaps are those dramatic prominences soaring above plains and rivers, impossible not to see, dramatic spots from where you can scan the surrounding landscape. Lover’s Leaps and their attendant legends are scattered across the land.

Inspiration for this more expansive topic comes from our favorite Missouri author and wry observer of humanity – Mark Twain. In Life on the Mississippi he tells of hearing the story of Winona from a fellow passenger on a steamship passing Maiden Rock, Wisconsin, on Lake Pepin (a watery wide spot in the Mississippi River). “…Romantic superstition has invested (Maiden Rock) with a voice; and oft-times as the birch canoe glides near, at twilight, the dusky paddler fancies he hears the soft sweet music of the long-departed Winona, darling of Indian song and story. . . . Perhaps the most celebrated, as well as the most pathetic, of all  the legends of the Mississippi.” (Chapter 59, Legends and Scenery”)

Each of our two most recent ‘river books’ (Damming the Osage and James Fork of the White) had a Lover’s Leap – one at Lake of the Ozarks; the other called Virgin Bluff on the James. We had written their legends in our books and through Twain’s account found more.

Linen postcard, 1940s showing Lover’s Leap, overlooking
the junction of the Niangua River and the Osage River.

 

 

Real photo poscard showing Virgin Bluff on the James River, where the lovely Moon Song leapt to her death in sorrow for her father’s threat against the handsome Spaniard she loved.

 

 

So Leland launched the research as we waited for James Fork of the White to be delivered from the printer. The  legends accumulated. The geographic locations were widespread and beautiful. The souvenirs and ephemera commemorating these locations were colorful, kitschy (in an appealilng way), and numerous. The concept took shape. In addition to collecting the myriad popular culture artifacts that commemorate such attractions, which we we’ve often use as illustrations for our books, we’ve hit the trail to seek out some of the more famous ( or infamous) locations to take contemporary photographs. First stop was Mark Twain’s hometown, Hannibal, Missouri, which has its own Lover’s Leap rising above the Mississippi. More on that in the next post.

Damming the Osage: The Conflicted Story of Lake of the Ozarks and Truman Reservoir (amazon.com) and James Fork of the White: Transformation of an Ozark River (amazon.com) are  available at this website , amazon.com and Barnes & Noble in Springfield.