Open Country is your first novel and yet you have been writing, teaching writing, and publishing your short stories, essays, and cowboy poetry in literary journals for decades. What inspired this novel and why did you wait to tell it? Richards: I never intended to write a novel. I intended to write a short story about one of the stops on the Underground Railroad, a house on a cliff that ... Read More »
Blog
Happy Birthday Connie Blues
Connie’s birthday is April 7, but I didn’t think about a video until now. ... Read More »
Tear Down This Wall
I went to an open-mike night at a comedy club in Adams Morgan in the early eighties and one act caught my attention, a man in jeans and a t-shirt emblazoned with the Presidential seal, holding a Ronald Reagan dummy on his knee. It was a raunchy act in which the comedian would say something like “there’s a beautiful naked lady in the other room” and the dummy pointed his hand at the wall and ... Read More »
Interview of Jimmy Thackery
Here is an interview I did of Jimmy Thackery , blues guitarist and song writer virtuoso, for the “washington review” in the early nineties. He and Sally have since moved away from Eureka Springs to foreign climes, but he still tours the U.S.A. in the summer. His next tour starts March 21. Check out his site in “Links.” Interview of Jimmy Thackery By Jeff ... Read More »
Elephant Grass
When I was a sophomore in college I wrote a story called “Talks to A Drunk.” I got the title out of one of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s ledgers, a list of what he thought would be good titles for stories. In my piece, the “drunk” turned red, white, and blue when he passed out. Here is a story written by my son who I think is a talented writer when he was 19 and a sophomore at the University of Colorado. ... Read More »