Podcasts about James Dickey

On the #amwriting podcast's Margin Notes, host Jennie Nash talks with Caroline Bicks, Stephen E. King Chair in Literature at the University of Maine and co-host of the Everyday Shakespeare podcast, about her book Monsters in the Archives: A Year of Fear with Stephen King. Bicks describes how she became the first invited into King's Bangor archives after King called to meet her, and how her sabbatical became a year of researching five formative works (including Carrie, Night Shift, The Shining, Salem's Lot, and Pet Sematary) to understand how horror language creates lasting fear. She explains choosing a first-person narrative that blends literary criticism, archival discovery, and her own anxiety, including eerie moments in the archive and insights into King's word-level edits, literary influences, and Shakespearean foundations, especially The Shining's ties to Hamlet.#AmWriting is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Read the Book* Monsters in the Archives by Caroline BicksTranscriptJennie: [00:00:00] Hi, I'm Jennie Nash, and you're listening to the #amwriting podcast, the place where we help writers of all kinds play big in your writing life, love the process, and stick with it long enough to finish what matters most. Welcome, everyone. This is Margin Notes, the part of the podcast where we're talking about the big decisions writers face in their work and creative lives.I'm here today with a super special guest. I'm so excited to speak with Caroline Bicks. She is the Stephen E. King Chair in Literature at the University of Maine, where she teaches courses in Shakespeare, early modern culture, and horror fiction. And she's the author of all kinds of very cool books ... about Shakespeare, including one on cocktails.Um, and, uh, is the co-host of the Everyday Shakespeare podcast, and we are here today to talk with her about her new book called [00:01:00] Monsters in the Archives: A Year of Fear with Stephen King. Welcome.Caroline: Thank you. Thanks for having me.Jennie: So this is gonna be the strangest interview you've probably ever done. ICaroline: don't know.Because- I've talked to a lot of people around the world about this Stephen King book.Jennie: I couldn't read your book. I, I couldn't read it. I can't read horror. Yeah. Which listeners of this podcast are gonna laugh about, ‘cause I'm actually coaching someone live and they're writing gothic horror, and they're probably like, “All you talk about is horror, Jennie.”But, um, it's actually the reason why I wanted to talk to you, because you made a decision in the writing of this book that I thought was super cool. Mm. Which was you put yourself in it.Caroline: Yeah.Jennie: And you're a scholar.Caroline: Yeah.Jennie: And you've written scholarly books, and you approach this with a scholarly perspective, but you, you really put yourself in it.And, and so [00:02:00] I was reading it for that part of the story and I had to skip over huge chunks of, of the, of the work. Because what you're doing in this book is you're getting at this question of- W- what, what is scary in writing? Like, how does it actually work? How does it act- what is the magic or the function that makes us feel this thing?And you actually feel it yourself while you're going through it, and I found it quite terrifying actually. So, um, that's kinda what I wanted to talk about is how did you make the decision? Well, first of all, you were the first person, I wanna make sure I get this right, ‘cause this is very cool. Yeah. You were the first person who was invited to the archives, the Stephen King archives.Caroline: Yeah. I mean, it's, it's a bit of a story, so I won't spend too much time on it, but just the mo- Oh, no, do. It's good ... when I ch- when I took this position... So I've been a Shakespeare professor my whole adult life, ba- as soon as I graduated from grad school in the late ‘90s, [00:03:00] and I was at Boston College for 15 years.I took this position at University of Maine nine years ago as a Shakespearean. Um, so it is an endowed chair in Stephen King's name because he's our most famous alum. So when I took the position, I, it was because I'm a Shakespearean, not because I'm a horror specialist. Um, I had always been a Stephen King fan since I read him when I was 12, and he scared the beje- Jesus out of me, um, with The Boogeyman story.Jennie: Right.Caroline: Um, so when I took this position though I was told, “You're never gonna meet Stephen King. Don't even make contact with him.” I'm like, “Fine, you know, this is still a great job. I'm excited.” Um- ThanksJennie: for the money. Yeah.Caroline: Thanks for... You know, no, it's a wonderful fund. It was funded by the Harold Alfond Foundation, and it's to support the public humanities, which is an incredible mission.So, um, I get to give money away to people. You know, it's a great, great position, but I was not a horror specialist. And particu- a- and as an adult, I actually wasn't reading horror because it scares me too much. You know? Yeah, yeah. Um, but it had grabbed me when I was a teenager. So it was about four years into the [00:04:00] job when I got a call at home from Stephen King, which just, uh, uh, my jaw hit the floor.And he said, “You know, I think it's time we meet.” I'm like, you know, I, I really fan-girled because I really, I have so much admiration for him and respect. Um, I invited him to come talk to our students. He was brilliant, generous, funny, kind, and I felt so at ease that I felt like I could ask... You know, and I got to know him professionally.We had a good professional relationship that developed from there. When I had a sabbatical year coming up the next year- I could have written another Shakespeare book. I had another one in my head. I've written a bunch of them but I knew that he and Tabitha had just collected all of his manuscripts and put them in a climate-controlled space attached to their home in Bangor, and I thought, “You know, this is an incredible opportunity.I would love to dig in there and be the first one in there, and just read those early drafts of the books that scared me so much when I was a teenager, and try to just explore why. Why were they sticking in my head still?” Um, again, I am not a specialist in... I'm not a cognitive scientist. I'm not a [00:05:00] specialist in horror literature, but I'm obviously highly trained in how to do literary analysis and how to do archival work, not Shakespeare, because we don't have any of his works, but, you know, I, I understand what that process is.So back to your question about why I wanted to bring myself into it, which was, you know, I had been experimenting with first-person storytelling after I got tenure. You know, ‘cause it's a long process, Kate. Right. And most of my writing had been academic writing, but I really had always loved storytelling And I got a piece into the Modern Love column.I started to have some success with publishing my first-person stories, and I was like, “You know, I love this.” So when I had this opportunity to go into his archives, they generously said yes, was amazing. I thought, “You know, I really wanna tell this story. I don't wanna write an academic book. I want this to be the story of a literature scholar, but really the story about a scared kid.”Jennie: Yeah.Caroline: You know, you, you never lose that scare, you know, I don't... This is the thing. Fear has stuck with me with those stories [00:06:00] for 40 years. So I was fascinated, and I just wanted to understand how he had crafted the language so that it was sticking in my head still. Because when I was talking to people around, you know, whenever you mention Stephen King to people, you know, if they've read him, they remember specific lines and specific words, and I was like, “That's an extraordinary, um, 50 years on to have that power.”So, um- Well- Anyway. Yeah. Go ahead. I, I could talk about this forever, so you tell me- Oh, no, it's- ... where you wanted to pick up from this.Jennie: It's so good. Well, I have to tell you this funny anecdote, which is that my college roommate was from Bangor, Maine, and babysat his kids in that house.Caroline: Oh, that's insane.Jennie: So when I went to visit her, she drove me by that house.There you go. And I was like, “Oh, hell no- Yeah ... would I ever babysit in that house.” Like, it's-Caroline: It's ‘cause it's like a gothic, it's like straight out of Haunting of Hill House ...Jennie: actually, and like these spiderweb gates that, and you describe that in the [00:07:00] book and, and the- Yeah ... archives are in that house. They'reCaroline: in the house.They're attached to the back. I know. And it, it was so, it was, it was insane. It was like a full-on 360 experience writing this book. Um, and I, I knew, like, so I did the research for a year. I didn't even know if this would be a book. I just knew I wanted to have the opportunity to be in there because it, I knew it was a great opportunity, and I was so curious, you know?Yeah. So I, I came out of the year with just tons of notes and observations, but I didn't have a book, you know? Yeah. And then I started experimenting with writing a chapter, and I just, the storytelling just came forward and then when I got an agent and she, you know, s- I, I, I was able to get a contract based on a proposal and that one chapter I had written and I was really fortunate to have a fabulous editor, David Ebershoff, at Hogarth, who is just such a wonderful writer himself, and he really encouraged me to bring my voice in and bring my story in even [00:08:00] more.Um, so that's- And- ... that's the story of that.Jennie: Was it hard for you as a scholar to do that?Caroline: You know what? It was so freeing and so fun that it actually wasn't, you know? Because I, I knew this wasn't going to be an academic book, so once I let go of that- Yeah ... um, I was like, wow, I have the, and yet I have this skill set I can bring forward, and I knew that's what would make this unique.Um, but I can combine my two favorite ways of writing, ‘cause I do actually love writing literary criticism. Like it's, I get a thrill out of it. I wouldn't be doing it this long if I didn't get a thrill out of it, but I also love telling my own stories and drawing a reader in. And so for me it was like just a circus carnival.Like it was so fun to be able to do it. Once I had the permission and I had a contract, I was like, fine, you know? I, I, who am I writing this book for? I'm writing it for me, you know? Like this is just something I wanna do because I'm so passionate [00:09:00] about it and I, and I love Stephen King. And, um, once I got into it that way and wasn't thinking about who's gonna criticize me for this, like how will academics view this, I was like, I don't care.I just don't care. I know I've got a great story to tell that people are gonna love to read because there's so many people that love not just Stephen King, but people who love reading about how great books get written, you know? Yeah. And so that was the audience I had in my mind when I, when I was crafting it.It was really, in my mind, anybody who cares about books and writing. It doesn't have to be... So when you say, you're not the first person who's said to me, “I can't read your book,” or, “I can't read-” Oh, I'm so glad. “... Stephen King books,” you know, and I'm like, “That's okay. You can skip, you know, the parts that really scare you,” because there's plenty about just like that first chapter I wrote about Pet Sematary, just his sticky notes back and forth with his copy editor, which is so fun I think.You know, it's just like, wow.Jennie: Totally. Yeah. But the thing that you do is you- Allow yourself to confront that fear-Caroline: Yeah ...Jennie: [00:10:00] that, that I feel that the people can't, that can't read horror feel. You know, anybody that even allows themselves to be scared feels. And-Caroline: Yeah ...Jennie: and you, you do some very specific things, um, which I, I found fascinating, including tracking down on eBay the original copy of that book you read as a- Yeah, I wanted-as a teenager.Caroline: Yeah, that was part of the process for me, was I wanted to make sure I was reading... So before I would go into the archives for each work, and I'd spent like two... I only picked five, because I wanted to... First of all, I knew I wanted to make this personal. Um, and those were the five that scared me the most when I was a teenager.So I grew up in the ‘70s and the ‘80s as a teenager, so for me, it was in real time when the books were coming out practically. So it was- Yeah ... Carrie, Night Shift, The Shining, Salem's Lot, Pet Sematary. Um, I'm forgetting one of course. Uh, but I went -Jennie: The other one.Caroline: The other one. Had a huge impact on me. [00:11:00] So it was those five, and I, I knew those were the ones I was gonna do a deep dive into, and that I wanted to really re-engage with, and bring my whole self to.So I wanted to find the copies that I had read in the ‘70s and the early ‘80s. And fortunately, it's pretty easy to find them. Uh, so yeah, but eBay sometimes I had to go on, or go into a used bookstore and, you know, find the like actual 1979 paperback, you know.Jennie: Um- I mean, that- Um ... I just, there's some, there's so much to say about that because-Caroline: YeahJennie: like, I just, um- We, we just had a new bookcase built, um, which is something I've wanted to do well for eight years in this house. But it's a thing I've always wanted to have, which is like a grand bookcase, and it just was finished last week, and we had all the books packed up in storage, and we brought all the books back.Then we went through this discernment process of what goes [00:12:00] on those shelves. And I, you know, I had all those books from when I was a kid, even when I was a kid-kid, and they're yellow, and moldy and falling apart, and the covers aren't on, and they're taped and-Caroline: Yeah ...Jennie: eh, but I cannot let them go-Caroline: Yeah ...Jennie: because those...that was the object.Caroline: That's the object. This is what I feel sad for kids now, because they're not gonna have those same memories, um, of books. Yes. You know? And I don't think they stick in your head the same way if you don't have the full sensory embodied experience with a book.Jennie: Right. You know? Even when you open...I read on Kindle, which I love for so many reasons. Yeah. But you don't even see the cover.Caroline: You don't see the cover, right. And for me, it's so much. Like, I remember going to the Scholastic Book Fair and being like- Yes ... “I'm getting Summer of My German S- Soldier because Christy McNichol's on the cover,” you know?Yes. Yes. So yeah, that was part of the journey for me was I did wanna just [00:13:00] reconnect with those books again, try to h- and as much as you can, you know, reexperience the feelings of f- like The Shining, I actually... the only one I still have from 1977 is the actual Shining that I read. Um, and that's, for me, that woman in room 217.Well, I know you haven't read it ‘cause you're probably... What? But, um, it, that particular one I still have from, from when I was growing up. Um, and I love that I still have it, and it still has the photo... You know, it's the version that has the photo inserts that includes the Kubrick film photos. Oh, okay.Jennie: Okay.Yeah, yeah.Caroline: And I read it before I saw the film, so I remember being- 15 reading it and then seeing the pictures and being like you know? And that's part of the experience, but it wasn't, it's different than seeing the film, you know? And I really, I wanted to write this book as a love letter to language and to books, and not to film.Like, there's, that's a whole other category I think that enters people's brains in totally different ways. It's a very different experience. For me it's about, like going back to your original question [00:14:00] about like why, why, why do stories cause fear, and like what's the value perhaps in that? Yeah. That was something I came to after this long journey really, and talking to people and thinking about why.And also by understanding and reading more about Stephen King's books and talking to him about them, and realizing for him how much these stories are rooted in personal experiences or fears of grief and loss. And- Yes ... that was really profound for me. And like The Night Shift, which is the ur-text that I start with, ‘cause that's the one I read when I was 12, and that's his first collection of short stories.It came out in 1978. It's 20 short stories. But he ends it with a story about his mother dying, and it's, I mean, it's thinly veiled autobiography. It's about a man who's watching his mother die in the hospital. Um, but it's clearly a mirror of his own experience losing his mother when he was 26. And I'm like, wow, what's that doing in a collection of horror stories?[00:15:00] And it's like, what? ‘Cause that is of course, at least for me and I think for a lot of people, that's the core fear we first have, is that where's mommy, right? Yeah. Right? You lose the person who's in charge of taking care of you, and if you're lucky, does it well and with care. Um, but even if it's not, like Carrie, you know, the more I was looking through the Carrie drafts, I was like, right, he's really homing in on Carrie calling out for her mother even though her mother's terrible and abusive to her, right?So it's, there's just this, I don't know. It's a long way around to say I think horror, and he writes about this really eloquently, is a way for us to metabolize our deepest fears. Um, and to look at trauma not head-on but sideways. Um, and he writes about that, um, a number of different places in a really powerful way.He's just such an extraordinary human. You know, he's been thinking about this and for so long.Jennie: Yeah. Yeah. So, so your willingness to [00:16:00] confront that, those particular fear, fears in your own self and on behalf of the reader, really puts you in it. I mean, like you, there's a really lovely moment where you are reading I think it's, I think it's Pet Sematary, reading the actual book, and you have to turn it over so you- Yeahdon't see, like on your nightstand so you don't see the cover. I'mCaroline: scared, I'm scared of the cover, right, still.Jennie: Yeah.Caroline: Yeah.Jennie: And then there's moments, se- several where you're driving And you're sort of holding your breath while you drive past a place that he writes about or, or- Mm-hmm ... you know, um, well you have to tell the story, I'm sure every interviewer asks you about the, um, the doorknob in the archive.You have to, like, I was-Caroline: Yeah, not too many people have asked me about that, but I'm like, that to me was the scary moment-Jennie: Wait, shut up ... the most, theCaroline: most sturdy. I'm like, wh- uh, why did that happen? But of course, I mean, there's a reason why it happened. It's, it's, it [00:17:00] automatically locks if, you know, the, if you- Okaydon't lock it So let's, let's play- So but it just happened that we were inside the archive room. It was me and, and Julie Ugli, who is their assistant, who was helping me through this whole process. And I know, and I was, like, literally holding the first page of the first draft of The Boogeyman, the story that had scared me so badly when I was 12, about a monster that comes out of closets, and we're like in this room.And the, the archive room, it actually, it almost feels like a closet. It's not huge at all. You know, it's just-Jennie: Yeah ...Caroline: top to bottom, ceiling to floor stacked shelving with, you know, boxes of materials. And yeah, and we were in there, and I'm holding the first page, and the lock closes on its own. It just goes...And I'm like, I'm looking at Julie, I'm like, “What is, what's happening?” We don't have our cell phones with us. I'm like, “Are we stuck in here? Like, what's gonna happen?”Jennie: In the scary archive- In this, I was terrified ... in the back of the scary house. Like-Caroline: I know, I know. It was like, you can't make this stuff up.That's why I was like, I [00:18:00] couldn't wait, when I finally got a chance to write the book and sit down and write, I was like, I can't wait to tell these stories, because they just... I, I'm not a fiction writer. Like, I, I have such mad respect for- I don't know about that ... well, I've m- We'll see I don't know. I have mad respect for people who can write fiction.For me, I only can write what I know and exper- So I'm like, ah. But these stories were just so amazing. Or like when I was reading The Shining, like the first draft of The Shining, which is crazy. I mean, it's so different from the published version. And like getting to the woman in room 217, and like reading th- and literally my head w- like I thought I was having a stroke.Like it was like, like... And it's like, and then I find an interview where Stephen King writes about how he was scared to go back to that scene when he was revising it, the book, because he was dreading it. And I was like, oh, my God, have I just like had some kind of telepathic experience with Stephen King?Like- Right ... across time, space, and yeah, it was amazing.Jennie: Well, yeah. I mean, [00:19:00] it's just, um, uh, I actually made myself go through the whole book skipping giant chunks.Caroline: I feel so badly I put you through this.Jennie: I know. I, I feel like why, I kept saying, “Why? Why did I think this was a good idea?” Um, and it- I mean, even just tangentially, I, I don't know.It's interesting. I have, I'm sure you have this too, anybody who reads a lot or spends a lot of time with words, you have a capacity to sort of pay half attention, if that makes sense.Caroline: Mm-hmm.Jennie: Um, like you c- could sort of look at it without letting it all the way in. Yeah. But I, I just was, I just was riveted by the thread of, of your story and your putting yourself through that as a scholar and a human.But, but then some really cool things happen, and I, and I have flagged, um... Do you, [00:20:00] w- would you mind reading a tiny piece? It's- No, not at all ... it's on page 82, and it's the p- the paragraph that starts, “These manuscripts.”Caroline: Yeah.Jennie: That would be amazing.Caroline: Absolutely. So this is actually the moment I just described to you, where my head was like, I got...Oh, actually, I had just discovered the last 150 pages of the original Shining manuscript in a random folder in the archives, and I was like, “What is this doing here?” And I was getting obsessive about the manuscripts at this point, clearly- Yeah. Yeah ... just like the main character in The Shining, Jack Torrance, who gets obsessed with the manu- with the papers in the basement of the Overlook Hotel.But here we go. “These manuscripts are definitely getting into my head, and not just its rational part. In his memoir, when King describes books as being a uniquely portable magic, he doesn't specify what kind of magic. What if manuscripts can absorb and store more than just ink and words? [00:21:00] What if their pages can pass on dark energy along with dark stories?Ghosts have more than one way of making sure their stories are heard, of ensuring that the past is not forgotten, but rather pressed into our minds, even if we wrench our heads off the pillow and refuse to listen.” And that last is a reference to my, I used to see a ghost when I was five, and I write about that in the book too.Jennie: I mean, when I read that, I was like, “That's, that's me.” Like, these ghosts and horrors are pressing themselves into my mind, and I'm refusing to listen, and they still, they still do. And, um, King's stories in particular are so iconic, you can't really escape them. Like, you, you know the scenarios, you know the characters, you know-Caroline: YeahJennie: you know. And, and so it was interesting for me reading this book that that described my [00:22:00] experience where I was both repelled and magnetized at the same time.Caroline: That's beautiful the way you just put that. I mean, I think that is exactly our relationship also, of course, to our own fears. You know, again, what makes these stories endure, and I didn't go into this book thinking like, “This is a book about promoting Stephen King,” and, you know- Rightlike, I don't work for Stephen King. I just want to put that out there. Right. He, you know, he graciously agreed to let me go into the archives. He's been very generous about answering all my questions I had about the manuscripts, but he never at any point was like, “You can't say this,” or, “This is how you're supposed to say this.”So, but what I came away with after this process was exactly what you're describing, why we need these stories, why they endure, actually, is because they tap into our very real human fears. It's not about the monsters. It's about the grief and loss that's coming for all of us if we live long enough, you know?So you, and you have to at some point confront that, you know? So if it's- Yeah ... you can [00:23:00] try to run away from it, but it's coming, and that's part of being human. That's the human experience, obviously. Not to be glib, but it's like-Jennie: Yeah ...Caroline: you will experience loss. You will experience grief. And if these stories help you metabolize that or have a cathartic experience with that feeling without having to actually experience your worst fear, right?Um, like Aristotle says, it's cathartic, right? It's you watch a play, a, a tragedy because you experience a catharsis.Jennie: And did you, did you get to that in your own process?Caroline: That's a really good question. Um- You know, I, I think I became more aware of it. You know, I am, you know, and I write about this very openly in the book, that I was an extremely anxious little kid, um, which is part of why I think the boogeyman triggered me in the particular way it did, you know.Um, and that I grew into a pretty [00:24:00] anxious adult, you know? Yeah. I think anxiety is one of those things that, you know, I... Again, I was born in the ‘60s, so we didn't have this language for this back then. Like, my parents wouldn't have known to call me an anxious child, you know? Right. They probably would've said, “Oh, she's shy,” or, “She's whatever.”Um, so I think I, you know, like, and I as an adult, I think I've, I've found ways to manage it pretty well, but I am definitely a control freak. Like, that's part of how I manage it. I shouldn't use that language, but you know, it's like I, I like to just control what I can control, and that makes me feel that I can put the anxiety at bay.So I will say I think it's been interesting for me, Nick, now when I have those moments that are my worst fear moments that sometimes still will creep up on me just even though when I think I've figured it out, like doom s- doom scenarios. I tend to go to doom scenarios. So, like, if I can't reach... Uh, I will say Life360 has been, like, the best invention on the planet for me-with my two kids [00:25:00] and my husband. I'm like, “I know exactly where everyone is.” Yeah. It has saved me a lot of worry. Sometimes Life360 doesn't work, or sometimes a person still doesn't answer the phone, and then I have to manage my anxie- And then it's like... So I will say it's been interesting going through this process and having to confront or revisit the core of what scares me and, like, why that impacts, you know, why certain moments come forward for me still.So I think, yeah, I think it has helped me to a degree. Like, I can recognize it more clearly now. I'm like, “Oh, right, that's why I'm scared of that,” you know? Um-Jennie: That's so cool.Caroline: Yeah.Jennie: And it feels like that's the, the, um, the transformation in the book is you're exploring how that actually works and the language and the stories.Mm-hmm. But you're, you're also exploring how it works in your own self, how it did when you were young, how it does now- Yeah ... these moments when you're scared. So it- Mm-hmm ... there's such [00:26:00] a depth to it and, I mean, I just, uh, even in my half reading of it, I just loved it. Thank you. And, um, there's something that happens That's kind of crazy, which is, so you're a Shakespeare scholarCaroline: Mm-hmmJennie: And I ha- I, I know from reading Steve, a- about Stephen King, from reading his book On Writing, of course, and, um, interviews and such that, uh, I'm, I'm probably gonna say this in a disrespectful way, and I don't mean it to be so, but the, the easiest way I can describe it is that he's always had sort of a chip on his shoulder that he's just a popular writer and not taken seriously in a literary way.Mm. I don't know if that's, if that is fair to say, but that's how I'm saying it. Uh,Caroline: yeah.Jennie: And, um, what, what I found incredible was that [00:27:00] here comes this Shakespeare scholar into his archives doing proper scholarly archiver, arch- archival work, and there's this moment when you begin to see Shakespearean themes in his, in his work, and you can't ignore it, and particularly in, in Carrie and- Yeahparticularly around exactly the thing you were wrestling with, which is like a young girl's- I don't know, sense of, of not being fitting in the world or, um-Caroline: Yeah ...Jennie: right? And so that, um, there's, on page, since you have the book in your hand, um, I think it's pageCaroline: 202. Mm-hmm.Jennie: And it refers back to that passage you just read about portable magic.It's the one that's I remembered.Caroline: [00:28:00] Right. Okay. So this is going back to when I first was, um, I was in the final round of the job for the Stephen E. King Chair in Literature, and I was working on a book about Shakespeare's, the girls in Shakespeare's plays and world and teenage girls and their cognition.Like, the how were people during Shakespeare's day thinking about girls' brains? Yeah. So I'd been working on this for 10 years. Um, and then I was getting ready to give my job talk. This was the first time Stephen King and Shakespeare came together for me, and it was getting ready, and this, again, this is an authentic story, like write what you know.So I was getting ready for the job talk. I remembered that King's 1974 novel, Carrie, featured a 16-year-old girl whose telekinetic powers are unleashed when she gets her first period in the school shower. I started rereading it, and within a few pages came across an uncanny phrase. When she's walking home after being dismissed early, Carrie feels her brain flexing in a new way, [00:29:00] as if her powers have been waiting below the surface for her to reach, quote, “mental puberty.”I couldn't have wordsmithed this dynamic cognitive change better myself. In the last part of my job talk, I used the phrase to connect the brain work of Juliet Capulet, who's described as being two weeks away from seeing the change of 14 years, to Carrie's newly activated adolescent mind. It felt like a moment of pure portable magic between Stephen King, Shakespeare, and me.Jennie: Ugh, so beautiful.Caroline: Oh, thank you. Yeah. I mean, that was just so gobsmacking. Like, when that happened, I was like, I ca- I can't believe it, but yeah.Jennie: And then, now I may be getting some of the things wrong here, but then you- You realize, is it Carrie that, that you realize he was, you thought he was emulating a play, a Shakespeare play?Caroline: I think you're thinking of Shining. I mean, definitely at the end of the Carrie [00:30:00] chapter I return to, I did notice echoes of Macbeth, and I was convinced that that must have been what he was thinking about. And, and what's funny is, so one of the conversations I got to have with him, I mean, he's so generous with his time, one of my last conversations with him was about the end of Carrie, and that's a book that he actually doesn't like very much.You know, it was his first published novel, he was 26, and he's like, “I think that was written by a young man who thought he knew more than he did.” So he's, it's not a book that he goes back to. He recognizes it's important, and it's important to him, but, ‘cause it started his whole career, his whole trajectory.Um, but he didn't particularly, he hasn't returned to it. Yeah. So that was a fun chance for me to sort of talk to him and say, “Hey, you know what? I think you should maybe go back,” ‘cause it's it's, there's a lot of Shakespeare in there. Anyway, but the Shining chapter, what was fascinating, so there's this first draft, which I, I write a lot about, called The Shine, that's in the archives, with a totally different ending.Um, and when I looked at it, [00:31:00] he'd also divided it into acts and scenes, like Roman numeral acts and little- Mm ... Roman numeral scenes. And I was like, “This, what is this? This is like a Shakespeare play.” Like, that's what it looked like. And then sure enough, I found out he was imagining, he was thinking of a Shakespeare tragedy when he wrote The Shining.And that was the first moment where I was like, “What? This is insane.” Like, this- Yeah ... like, ob- obviously that became, for me, the story I wanted to tell about that particular set of manuscripts, was sort of uncovering, like, what's the Shakespeare play? Like, what's the tragedy? And I didn't wanna ask him because I didn't want- I wanted to go in with my mind clear, like, of any outside influence.I just wanted to see what my Shakespeare brain, because I'm so embedded in Shakespeare. I also have a Shakespeare podcast I do with my best friend. Like, we're, I'm always thinking about Shakespeare and how it relates to everyday life. You know, and so I'm like, “Well, how does it relate to The Shining?” Which is, like, an ur-American text.Like, this, like, say what you want about horror, [00:32:00] like- I'd be shocked if people don't know what The Shining's about, even if they haven't read it even if they haven't seen the film. Like, you probably know something about The Shining, right? Right. So I was like, if there's a Shakespeare tragedy at the foundation of this, you know.And here's the thing about Stephen King that I came to learn, again, reading all of his notes and finding these edits, and I did find traces of Macbeth in the first draft of The Shine, um, that he ended up taking out. So I was like, “Oh, is it Macbeth? It feels like it could be Macbeth.” There's so many things it has in common with it, with hallucinations and with baby bashing.And, you know, all of these horrible things that are in Macbeth are certainly in that book. Um, but I really wanted to go in, like, just on an adventure, like, see what I saw. So I didn't ask him which chi- tragedy until I was fully done with all my research and I felt like I had it all done. And that's when he drops that he was thinking of Hamlet.And once he said that, of course, it became so ... I mean, I [00:33:00] had seen traces, there were references to Ophelia that also didn't make it into the final published draft. So you wouldn't know this. This is the beauty of archival work, like you're gonna see things that other people will never know about unless you tell the story.That's why I felt so passionate about this. Like, “I need to tell people-” Yeah ... “that Ophelia was in the first draft, that he was thinking of Ophelia.” ‘Cause of course, you know, again, even if you don't know The Shining, the woman in the tub, the woman in the bathtub, like a drowned woman in a tub, like ah, Ophelia.Yeah. Like Ophelia's another one of those ur, like she's so, she's such a part of our cultural air, right? I mean, like no matter what country you're in. Right. There's a reason Taylor Swift has a whole, you know, song The Fate of Ophelia. Like people know what that means. Um, so I was like, “Oh my gosh, this is, this is incredible.This is even deeper than I thought it was gonna be.” Um, but also it made me appreciate how much that book is about intergenerational trauma. Um, and it's not ... So he doesn't like the Kubrick film [00:34:00] for reasons that, you know, a couple different reasons. One is that it flattens out the character of Jack Torrance, and Jack Torrance is an abused child himself, and he passes on that abuse to his son, Danny, right?Um, but you wouldn't know that from Kubrick's film. While Hamlet, of course, is about a father's ghost coming forward. Like, “The past is a ghost,” King writes, which is so f- powerful, right? Um, here's this ghost saying, “You need to kill for me.”Jennie: Yeah.Caroline: Yeah. And that's what happens to Jack. Yeah, so anyway, that's a long way to say that wasEach chapter was my favorite in different ways, but that one I loved being able to do the deep Shakespeare dive.Jennie: And was that ... You know, so I started that question by saying I, I had heard or understood or maybe inferred that, um, you know, King himself had this sort of desire- Okay ... to be taken more seriously.Was that, that must have been, I don't know, powerful for both you and him, uh, to [00:35:00] come to that? Not like, “Oh, you're the only person that's ever made him feel that way” or-Caroline: Yeah,Jennie: no,Caroline: I agree ... or agree with that, but. Like I, yeah. And, um, I mean, I will say I think part of the reason he was always really ... I mean, first of all, he's just so generous, and any writer who's ever worked with him has the same experience.Like he just gives his time. He just loves writing and writers so much that he will just, he'll just t- like any email I would send him, he'd write back in like an hour with a response. The part about how he feels about academia, you know, and I never directly asked him that because I didn't wanna ... You know, if he wanted to bring it up, great.But I think- Yeah ... my, after going on this journey with him, he clearly loves talking about- literature. He's the most well-read person I've ever met. I'm just gonna say that hands down. Like, the guy reads- Really? ... cons- constantly and if you read his early works, like even when he was 17, he wrote The Long Walk, okay, which just came out as a film, [00:36:00] and in that, he's citing T.S.Eliot, he's cit- he's citing Poe at 17. Okay? So he's, he, he, this, he comes by this honestly. He's not just trying to seem smart. Like, he literally is constantly reading and it's clear when you read his manuscripts or when you read his published books, he's making references to all, whether it's Shirley Jackson or Wallace Stevens or, you know, uh, he's so capacious in his knowledge of literature.And, like, just a couple months ago, he sent me an email, I don't, I can't remember, we were talking about something about Salem's Lot, and he was like, “Yeah, when I was writing Salem's Lot,” which again, this is 1975 when he's writing Salem's Lot, so that's a long time ago. He's like, “I was really into James Dickey's poetry.”Jennie: Whoa.Caroline: You know, who was an American no, you know, poet laureate. Uh, he's like, “And I was reading everything I could read of, of his and then I read Deliverance, and then I went back to his poetry, and that really impacted how I wrote the chapters [00:37:00] about the Lot,” which if you've read Salem's Lot, has some very lyrical, poetic chapters about the town, like, “The town knew about darkness.The town had its secrets and knew how to kept it.” And then he, like, sends me the entire poem that he was thinking about that James Dickey wrote. So I mean, it's, he's, and it's not performative. He's not, like, he has nothing. He doesn't need to prove anything to me, you know?Jennie: Right, to anyone, yeah.Caroline: He just literally loves, he loves literature.Like, this guy, he loves poetry. I mean, he actually writes poetry. He wrote poetry as an undergraduate. Uh, it was actually the core start for him of The Stand, was a poem he wrote called The Dark Man one day when he was, like, hungover in the school, like, cafeteria. Like, so it's like he, he's been thinking about literature and living with literature and, uh, since he was a teenager, if not earlier.His mom brought him, uh, Bram Stoker out of the public library when he was nine, so I mean, the guy- Whoa ... ‘cause he asked for it. He asked for Dracula. [00:38:00] I wasn't reading Dracula when I was nine. Were you? I mean-Jennie: No,Caroline: no. I was reading Little House on the Prairie. I mean-Jennie: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Wow. Wow. So- I mean, this book, again, it's called Monsters in the Archives: My Year of Fear with Stephen King by Carolyn Bicks.It's just incredible, whether you're a King fan, whether you're a horror fan, um, but for sure for all writers, which are all our listeners. If you can, if you can bear it.It's very specific, um, a very specific- specific exploration of, of how good writing works really. Yeah. Right. And, and how you... You know, there's always that perennial question of how do you get emotion on the page? How do you make your reader feel something? And you, you show it very specifically, and I wanted so badly [00:39:00] to, to get into the details, and I, and I, I just, I just couldn't.Um, maybe someday, but, um, I just, I just can't recommend it enough for, for, um, this audience and, um, you know, anyone who's interested in any of these things we've talked about.Caroline: Thank you so much. I really appreciate that. And I will say, like, the Pet Sematary chapter, which is the first one, that was the first day I was in the archives.One of the things I discovered about him day one was how much attention he pays to word sounds. So I think for any writer interested in sort of doing a deep dive into, like, how one word change, right- Yeah ... can make a difference, you know? Yeah. And I didn't appreciate that about his writing until I went in there and saw his notes to the copy editor where he's like, “Nope, the word's clitter, not clatter.This is why.” You know? Like,Jennie: he's- There's a, um- Yeah ... yeah, there's a book I love, it's probably right behind me, um, called The Artful Edit by Susan Bell, in which she [00:40:00] shows examples of that kind of very careful change in, um, The Gre- The Great Gatsby and The English Patient and various works of, of literature, and your, your whole book is like that.It's, it's just amazing. Um- Thank you ... so is the next book gonna be the Shakespeare one you had thought of before? Or are you gonna- ... go in the, in the personal direction?Caroline: You know, it's such a good question. I think right now I'm just taking a break, you know, because I'm the kind... Like, I immerse myself in a project, and this has been so all-consuming.Um, and I'm back to doing my Everyday Shakespeare podcast, which I love and I missed. Um, so I'm doing that. And I, I really don't like to think too far ahead about what I'm going to write. I like to have it come organically.Jennie: Yeah.Caroline: Um, so I could go back into the archives. I could write another one of these kinds of books, but I don't know if that's the [00:41:00] right thing for me right now.Jennie: Yeah.Caroline: Um, I want to make sure whatever I write next- You know, I loved writing this book so much. It's my favorite... I mean, it's, it was such a powerful experience for me, um, because I could bring my personal experiences into it and my scholarly self into it. I don't... You know, it's gonna be hard to recreate that.Yeah. I think it can be done, but I don't wanna force it. Yeah. So I'm gonna wait and see what the next, what the next oneJennie: is. Don't you, don't you love the interviewer who's like, “Hey, congratulations. You wrote a book. What, what's your nextCaroline: one?” What are you working on now? What are you doing now? I know. And I get that.I'm like-Jennie: So mean ...Caroline: I'm just, I'm just reading books I wanna read. I'm doing my laundry. I'm getting to know my dog again. You know?Jennie: Oh, wow. Well, thankCaroline: you. But, you know, it's a fair question. Yeah.Jennie: Yeah, yeah. Thank you for coming and chatting about this, and for writing such a cool book. And- Thank you ... um, I'm looking forward to seeing what you do next.Caroline: Thank you, Jennie. It was a [00:42:00] pleasure.Jennie: Well, for our listeners, until next time, stop playing small and write like it matters.The #amwriting podcast is produced by Andrew Perilla. Our intro music, aptly titled Unemployed Monday, was written and played by Max Cohen. Andrew and Max were paid for their time and their creative output because everyone deserves to be paid for their work This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit amwriting.substack.com/subscribe

Andrew Rosenheim talks about his contemporary spy thriller The Interpreter's Secret, AI in publishing, kindle, literary games on the page, cat and mouse chases. The Interpreter's Secret: in Stockholm for a G20 summit, the interpreter Thomas Weaver is summoned by the White House Chief of Staff to an off-the-record meeting with a Russian general. Expecting routine diplomacy, what Weaver gets instead is a chilling glimpse into a secret arrangement between Washington and the Kremlin. Warned never to divulge what has been said, Weaver discovers he has accidentally recorded the meeting – the only evidence that it took place. Now under threat, he escapes to the safety of a friend's house in the English countryside, and then on to London. Yet even there he senses danger. Unsure where to turn, Weaver finds unexpected help from the enigmatic Lily Churchill, whose own loyalties are a mystery. As the two begin to grasp the significance of what Weaver has heard, he and Lily are forced to go underground to hide from their unknown pursuers, who seem determined to silence Weaver for good. The Interpreter's Secret is a sophisticated literary thriller about corruption, conspiracy, and the lethal confusions of language. Mentions: Alan Parks Gunner, James Dickey, John le Carré, JAMES WOLFF SPIES AND OTHER GODS Paul Burke is the editor of Aspects of Crime. His first book Spies on Screen will be published later this year. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This edition of Nothing But The Poem features two poems by the American poet Jack Gilbert (1925-2012), both of which are included in Gilbert's penultimate collection 'Refusing Heaven'. Our regular podcast host, Samuel Tongue, after discussing the poems with the Friends of the SPL group (who meet monthly on Zoom), takes his customary deep dive into the stanzas, lines, words and sounds. “He takes himself away to a place more inward than is safe to go; from that awful silence and tightening, he returns to us poems of savage compassion.” - James Dickey, on Jack Gilbert "The unique kernel of Gilbert's poetry is its fearless exploration of the adult heart. It takes a moment to have a fling or write one good line, but sustaining authentic emotional participation, as Gilbert has in his life as a poet, is terrifying and hard, and is practically a lost art." - Sarah Manguso, The Poetry Foundation The two poems by Jack Gilbert read and discussed on the podcast are: 1. Failing and Flying 2. How Much of That is Left in Me

David Thetford and Gary Ashby are joined by James Dickey, Jason Sasser, Jason Martin, and Doc Sadler to talk about the 1995-96 Red Raider Basketball team, which will be honored at Texas Tech's game versus BYU.

The movie of the week is Deliverance (1972), and the team discusses all things hillbilly. From wiki: “Deliverance is a 1972 American thriller film directed and produced by John Boorman from a screenplay by James Dickey, who adapted it from his own 1970 novel. It follows four businessmen from Atlanta who venture into the remote northern Georgia wilderness to see the Cahulawassee River before it is dammed, only to find themselves in danger from the area's inhabitants and nature. It stars Jon Voight, Burt Reynolds, Ned Beatty, and Ronny Cox, with the latter two making their feature film debuts.”Also discussed: the winners of our giveaway have been picked, The Royal Tenenbaums, Vanessa 5000, Across 110th Street, Bound, Timestalker, and Appalachia. NEXT WEEK: The White Reindeer (1952)  Bloodhaus:https://www.bloodhauspod.com/https://twitter.com/BloodhausPodhttps://www.instagram.com/bloodhauspod/ Drusilla Adeline:https://www.sisterhydedesign.com/https://letterboxd.com/sisterhyde/ Joshua Conkelhttps://www.joshuaconkel.com/https://bsky.app/profile/joshuaconkel.bsky.socialhttps://www.instagram.com/joshua_conkel/https://letterboxd.com/JoshuaConkel/  

In this episode of the American Experiment Podcast we have two outstanding guests to talk about everything in the Minnesota House (yes, it got EVEN CRAZIER this past week). First, Representative Walter Hudson talks about the Democrats wanting to just not show up for work (and still get paid...), and later James Dickey talks about his case against Governor Walz and the State of Minnesota for BREAKING THE LAW trying to fill a seat before it is even vacant. 

James Dickey with the Upper Midwest Law Center is joined by Ryan Wilson to discuss significant legal battles from 2024 relating to many unconstitutional laws passed by the DFL "trifecta" in Minnesota during the 2023 and 2024 legislative sessions.

Jon Justice discusses ethnic studies with Attorney James Dickey.

CHRIS MCGINLEY chats to Paul aboutOnce These Hills It's 1898. Up on Black Boar Mountain in eastern Kentucky, life is quiet for the small settlement of farmers who work the land around their cabins. But when ten-year old Lydia King unearths an ancient, preservedbody on the seep bog, a curse is let loose. At least that's what some people believe.They might be right.Down in the valley, the Railroad uses convict labor to lay track, hell bent on timbering all of the hillside. Problem is, a trio of violent prisoners feel the work ain't exactly to their liking. Behind their ring leader Burr Hollis, a predatory, sadistic man whose name inspires fear amongst the hardest of criminals, they take to the hills and leave a wake of their own hell up on Black Boar, as wide and deep as any timber cut.In the years following, Lydia falls in love and marries a mountain boy, someone as skilled and at home in the woods as she. She discovers an intimate part of herself, and experiences both a physical and spiritualawakening that allows her to put the trauma behind her . . . or so she thinks.When Burr Hollis returns for a reckoning with her, she'll need all of her huntress skills just to stay alive. But she won't have much of a chance, unless she can reverse the curse of the bog bodyCOAL BLACKONCE THESE HILLS Mentions & recommendations Carter G Woodson, James Dickey, Charles Brockden Brown - Edgar Huntly, Wilma Dykeman, Harriet Arnow, Janice Holt Giles - Hannah Fowler, Willa Cather, Wesley Browne, Sheila Kay Adams - My Old True Love. 10th Anniversary Newcastle Noir 4th-7th December 2024 Produced by Junkyard DogCrime TimeCrime Time FM is the official podcast ofGwyl Crime Cymru Festival 2023CrimeFest 2023CWA Daggers 2023& Newcastle Noir 20232024 Slaughterfest, National Crime Reading Month, CWA Daggers

The queens play a round of Step Your Poetry Up before poet-voicing porn dialogue. Please Support Breaking Form!Review the show on Apple Podcasts here.Pretty Please.....Buy our books:     Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series.     James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books.SHOW NOTES:Here are links to some of the poems we mention:Amy Lowell, "Patterns"Robinson Jeffers, "Credo"H.D., "Sea Rose"Sara Teasdale, "Moonlight"An essay on Hart Crane's "The River"Robert Duncan, "My Mother Would Be a Falconress"Theodore Roethke, "In a Dark Time"Robert Creeley, "The Rain"James Dickey, "The Sheep Child"Galway Kinnell, "The Bear"Stanley Kunitz, "Father and Son"We make reference to the poet C. Dale Young--visit him online here. 

Questions are still swirling surrounding last week's election results in Minnesota.The Upper Midwest Law Center has been working to safeguard election integrity in the state for years. Senior trial counsel James Dickey joined Liz Collin Reports to discuss the ballot reporting issues in Sherburne and Scott counties, concerns about transparency in Minnesota elections, a Hennepin County election judge lawsuit, and what a Trump presidency could mean to election changes in Minnesota next year.Support the show

What is going on for teachers in the land of 10,000 lakes? Host Joseph Backholm is joined by senior attorney at the Upper Midwest Law Center, James Dickey, for a conversation unpacking what teachers are going through in Minnesota. Recently, the Professional Educator Licensing Standards Board in Minnesota declared that teachers must affirm the gender of their students - and if they don't, they "can teach at a private school" (direct quote from the state). James and his law firm are standing in the gap for teachers as the state takes a very controversial position requiring all public school teachers to conform to their standards or not be licensed to teach in Minnesota. Give this episode a listen to learn more about how Minnesota and Governor Walz are infringing upon Minnesotans' personal freedoms.

What is going on for teachers in the land of 10,000 lakes? Host Joseph Backholm is joined by senior attorney at the Upper Midwest Law Center, James Dickey, for a conversation unpacking what teachers are going through in Minnesota. Recently, the Professional Educator Licensing Standards Board in Minnesota declared that teachers must affirm the gender of their students - and if they don't, they "can teach at a private school" (direct quote from the state). James and his law firm are standing in the gap for teachers as the state takes a very controversial position requiring all public school teachers to conform to their standards or not be licensed to teach in Minnesota. Give this episode a listen to learn more about how Minnesota and Governor Walz are infringing upon Minnesotans' freedoms.

What is going on for teachers in the land of 10,000 lakes? Host Joseph Backholm is joined by senior attorney at the Upper Midwest Law Center, James Dickey, for a conversation unpacking what teachers are going through in Minnesota. Recently, the Professional Educator Licensing Standards Board in Minnesota declared that teachers must affirm the gender of their students - and if they don't, they "can teach at a private school" (direct quote from the state). James and his law firm are standing in the gap for teachers as the state takes a very controversial position requiring all public school teachers to conform to their standards or not be licensed to teach in Minnesota. Give this episode a listen to learn more about how Minnesota and Governor Walz are infringing upon Minnesotans' personal freedoms.

This week, the boys head up the Cahulawassee River to discuss ‘Deliverance': Films of 1972. Our random year generator spun a year we've previously crossed to discuss ‘The Godfather' and ‘A Clockwork Orange,' and the three of us had never seen it before! Maybe it's people's reaction when you say, “I'm going to watch ‘Deliverance,' want to come over?” While we're a joke-flinging, arrow-shooting, beer-drinking podcast, we promise to give a thoughtful and insightful reflection of ‘Deliverance' that other podcasts can't deliver! Dave also opens with a mini-review of 'Twisters' in IMAX! Grab a beer and push play.  Our phone number is 646-484-9298. It accepts texts or voice messages.  0:00 Intro; 9:16 ‘Twisters' mini-review; 19:52 Films of 1972; 31:38 'Deliverance'; 01:08:44 What You Been Watching?; 48:23: Spoilers; 01:19:01 Next Week's Episode Teaser Additional Cast/Crew/Mentions: Ned Beatty, John Voigt, Burt Reynolds, John Boorman, James Dickey, Ronny Cox, Vilmos Zsigmond. Hosts: Dave Green, Jeff Ostermueller, John Say Edited & Produced by Dave Green. Beer Sponsor: Carlos Barrozo Music Sponsor: Dasein Dasein on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/77H3GPgYigeKNlZKGx11KZ 
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Long-time supporter Kent and has picked another classic this week in Deliverance from 1972. And is also the last installment of our 3 week Burt Reynolds season! Check out a whole bunch of cool stuff Kent does on his facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/kentgustavsonphd. Deliverance, directed by John Boorman, was both ambitious and challenging, marked by its decision to shoot on location in the remote wilderness of northern Georgia. This choice lent the film an authentic and gritty atmosphere but also presented numerous logistical and safety challenges. The actors, including Jon Voight, Burt Reynolds, Ned Beatty, and Ronny Cox, performed many of their own stunts, including navigating the treacherous Chattooga River in canoes, which heightened the realism but also exposed them to significant risks. Burt Reynolds was injured while performing a canoe stunt when he was swept downriver and hit by rocks. The production team had to contend with the natural elements, which often made filming difficult and unpredictable, yet these same challenges contributed to the film's visceral and immersive quality. The production's commitment to authenticity extended beyond the physical challenges. Boorman chose to cast relatively unknown actors at the time to enhance the believability of the characters. The decision to film the infamous "Dueling Banjos" scene and other intense moments in natural settings without relying heavily on special effects or studio sets helped cement the film's raw and unsettling tone. Additionally, the script, adapted by James Dickey from his own novel, required delicate handling of its controversial themes, including graphic violence and sexual assault. Despite the difficulties faced during production, Deliverance emerged as a critical and commercial success, praised for its unflinching portrayal of survival and its exploration of human nature under duress. The film's stark realism, powerful performances, and haunting musical score have left a lasting impact on audiences and cinema history. If you enjoy the show we have a Patreon, so become a supporter. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.patreon.com/thevhsstrikesback⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Plot Summary: Four Atlanta businessmen, Ed, Lewis, Bobby, and Drew, embark on a weekend canoe trip down a remote Georgia river before it is dammed. Seeking adventure, their journey turns into a nightmare when they encounter hostile locals. After Bobby is brutally assaulted, the men are forced into a desperate fight for survival. Navigating the dangerous river and evading the vengeful mountain men, they must confront their own fears and primal instincts. The harrowing experience leaves them forever changed, highlighting the thin veneer of civilization and the raw brutality of human nature. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠thevhsstrikesback@gmail.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://linktr.ee/vhsstrikesback⁠ --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/thevhsstrikesback/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/thevhsstrikesback/support

A Safe Place to Have Bad Feelings with Tim Mueller Episode 3   On this episode, Tim Mueller and I discuss his passion for collecting books, comics, and other physical media; the magic and abundance of a used bookstore; and how the darkest kinds of books can develop the most empathy. Also, Tim recommends a host of underlooked books that you probably haven't heard of (I sure hadn't!).    Books mentioned in this episode:    What Betsy's reading:  Ghosts in the Schoolyard by Eve L. Ewing  Nightwatching by Tracy Sierra  Victim by Andrew Boryga   Books Highlighted by Tim:  Frankenstein by Mary Shelley  Docile by K.M. Szpara  The Forever War by Joe Haldeman Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman The Cook by Harry Kressing Strange Angel by George Pendle  The Mirage by Zay N. Smith and Pamela Zekman (out of print) The Monster Show by David J. Skal    Other Books Mentioned in the Episode: All books available on my Bookshop.org episode page.   Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkein  The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson  Books by Stephen King:  It  Gerald's Game  On Writing  The Stand  The Dark Tower Series  Carrie Salem's Lot  The Shining  The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix  Portnoy's Complaint by Phillip Roth  Out There Screaming: An Anthology of New Black Horror edited by Jordan Peele  Man in the High Castle by Phillip K. Dick  High Rise by J.G. Ballard  Paperbacks from Hell by Grady Hendrix  Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin  Deliverance by James Dickey 

Jon discusses distracted driving in the state and new laws implemented that do not have fines to match, then we welcome in James Dickey from the Upper Midwest Law Center for an extensive and informative conversation.

Pauline was a married mother of 3, her husband, Bufford was a police officer in McNairy County Tennessee near the Tennessee Kentucky line along I40., eventually becoming sheriff. Pauline was married before, having a son named Michael and a daughter Dian Vance. After growing up in Virginia and living in Chicago, Pauline met Bufford at a wrestling match. Bufford started off in wrestling. Buford Pusser was born in Finger, McNairy County, Tennessee, on December 12, 1937, his father was the police chief of Adamsville, Tennessee. Buford Pusser was a high-school football and basketball player and was 6 feet 6 inches tall. He joined the United States Marine Corps when he graduated from high school. His service ended and he was given a medical discharge for asthma.In 1957, he moved to Chicago, where he was a local wrestler known as "Buford The Bull". He married Pauline Mullins on December 5, 1959. Pusser returned home in 1962. He was Adamsville's police chief and constable from 1962 to 1964. After the sheriff James Dickey was killed in an auto accident, Pusser was elected sheriff, becoming the youngest sheriff in Tennessee's history. Pusser promptly began trying to eliminate crime and mob/mafia groups like the Dixie Mafia and the State Line Mob.Pusser was ineligible for re-election in 1970 due to the term limit then in effect. He was defeated in his bid for sheriff in 1972. Pusser blamed the loss to incumbent Sheriff Clifford Coleman in part on the controversy surrounding the making of the semibiographical movie Walking Tall. “Walking Tall” was a movie based on Bufford in the 1970's then a remake happened in 2004 featuring Dwayne the rock Johnson and Johnny Knoxville. The early morning of Aug. 12, 1967, the couple was heading to a disturbance call near the Tennessee-Mississippi line when a vehicle pulled up alongside theirs and began firing into the car with a military rifle, according to The Historical Marker Database and McNairy County Historical Society. According to Pusser, his phone rang before dawn on the morning of August 12, 1967, informing him of a disturbance on New Hope Road in McNairy County; Pusser responded and his wife Pauline rode along. Ride along were allowed then, but usually happened in daylight hours on a slow Sunday. Some believe he got a call around 2 am and where the shooting happened was only 20 minutes away from his house and the call came in of the shooting around 4 am. Shortly after they passed the New Hope Methodist Church, a fast-moving car came alongside theirs and the occupants opened fire, killing Pauline and leaving Pusser for dead. Doctors said he was struck on the left side of his jaw by at least two, or possibly three, rounds from a .30-caliber carbine. He spent 18 days in the hospital before returning home, and needed several more surgeries. Pusser died on August 21, 1974, of injuries sustained in a one-car automobile accident four miles west of Adamsville. Earlier that day, he had contracted with Bing Crosby Productions in Memphis to portray himself in the sequel to Walking Tall. That evening, returning home alone from the McNairy County Fair in his specially modified Corvette, Pusser struck an embankment at high speed that ejected him from the vehicle. The car caught fire and burned.56 years after Pauline's death, in February of 2024 they exhumed her body. No water was coming out of the casket so TBI is looking at the body for any other injuries. They weren't in a wreck, so the only wounds on her body should be the shot to her head. No reports have been made public at this time, but we will keep you up to date. Follow us on socials @ExpiredPodcast@ExpiredPodcastChatt@ExpiredPodcast423Support the show

On the latest episode of Minnesota Law Report, Upper Midwest Law Center senior counsel James Dickey and True North Legal president Renee Carlson discussed the current attacks on religious liberty in the state of Minnesota.

John Hinderaker, President of Center of the American Experiment, interviews James Dickey of the Upper Midwest Law Center and Kendall Qualls of TakeCharge, both of whom were targeted by an arson attack along with American Experiment in January.

SHOW NOTES... We've been talking a lot about Education of late, and the insurmountable problem of getting kids interested in reading if they aren't already. Two clear thoughts have emerged.      One, I think the tired but all-too-accurate metaphor that American society is an Allegory of High School (jocks, cheerleaders, druggies and criminals in the making, nerds, and disaffected sub-groups, etc.) is becoming more concrete and congruent with each passing year. The only new element I see is the School Shooting. Telling.       But as I was thinking about reading in this context, I realized I don't recall learning to read myself very well. I vividly remember the discomfort of learning to handwrite (print and cursive). The pencils always seemed too big for my hands. What I do recall about early reading is that it meant Independence. I didn't have to rely on my grandmother or older sister. For me, reading was an expression of masculine self-determination—stepping out from the females who both dominated and positively directed my young life. How many people today would see reading as an expression of masculinity? How odd. Only a short while ago, our most important poets were men like James Dickey, James Wright, and W.S. Merwin. Those days seem long ago.      The second thought to reveal itself from this stream was The Bicycle. I used to ride my green Schwinn 3-speed to a bookstore in a strip mall to purchase the next Hardy Boy book I hadn't read. One rainy day, I realized I'd eventually run out of Hardy Boys…so I feverishly began creating my own deeply imitative series The Benton Boys. My real, private passion about writing came out of Fan Fiction. I openly borrowed characters. I just didn't want to run out of story.      I paid for the Green Bike myself…with the money I earned cleaning toilets and vacuuming floors for an industrial dry cleaner, starting at age 9. The job gave me more than $ and work ethic pride. It was a place to be after school in the strange days following my violent rape in 4th grade. The Green Bike was what I needed. The rape would never have happened if I'd had a bike. I made a major correction of reality. The Hardy Boys entered in…and then the Benton Boys. Reading + Green Bike = Independence.

They have brought 4 different criminal cases against Trump. The Georgia case is collapsing in scandal. Now, it's looking more and more likely that Jack Smith won't be able to put Trump on trial before the November election. Will he pull it off? Kane of Citizen Free Press discusses that, the explosive growth of his website, and his gut feeling on whether Joe Biden will be on the ballot next fall. Plus, James Dickey discusses a disturbing arson attack on conservatives in Minnesota. For more exclusive content, become a member at members.charliekirk.com!Support the show: http://www.charliekirk.com/supportSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

They have brought 4 different criminal cases against Trump. The Georgia case is collapsing in scandal. Now, it's looking more and more likely that Jack Smith won't be able to put Trump on trial before the November election. Will he pull it off? Kane of Citizen Free Press discusses that, the explosive growth of his website, and his gut feeling on whether Joe Biden will be on the ballot next fall. Plus, James Dickey discusses a disturbing arson attack on conservatives in Minnesota. For more exclusive content, become a member at members.charliekirk.com!Support the show: http://www.charliekirk.com/supportSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I am suing Keith Ellison and the Minnesota Board of Medical Practice. Why am I doing this? What is the update? What may be the outcome?I'm joined by Upper Midwest Law Center's James Dickey as we discuss the precedent for free speech and professionals.

Welcome to the Instant Trivia podcast episode 1079, where we ask the best trivia on the Internet. Round 1. Category: Elemental Latin 1: Aurum. gold. 2: Ferrum. iron. 3: Plumbum. lead. 4: Argentum. silver. 5: Kalium. potassium. Round 2. Category: The Real Adams Family 1: Let's drink a beer to the memory of this man who died in Boston Oct. 2, 1803, aged 81. Sam Adams. 2: In 1900 Brooks Adams predicted that in 50 years these countries would be the world's 2 main powers. the United States and Russia. 3: On becoming president, he said he was "less possessed of your confidence... than any of my predecessors". John Quincy Adams. 4: Henry Adams lived in this city, and there's a memorial to his wife Clover in Rock Creek Cemetery there. Washington, D.C.. 5: In 1848 Charles Francis Adams was on the ticket of this 2-word party formed to oppose the extension of slavery. the Free Soil Party. Round 3. Category: Beantown Tv 1: We learned of 3 people who'd never been in Cliff Clavin's kitchen when he played "Jeopardy!" on this sitcom. Cheers. 2: Julie Bowen, Candice Bergen and Rene Auberjonois get lawyered up on this David E. Kelley drama. Boston Legal. 3: Bruce Greenwood, Ed Begley Jr. and Denzel Washington played doctors at St. Eligius on this drama. St. Elsewhere. 4: In the '70s he played Banacek, a suave Beacon Hill P.I.; in the '80s he led "The A-Team" and blew up a lot of stuff. (George) Peppard. 5: Sharon Leal, Jeri Ryan and Chi McBride educated us on this David E. Kelly drama. Boston Public. Round 4. Category: Consciousness Of Stream Writing 1: Mark Twain's memoir "Life on" it tells tales of one of America's great rivers. the Mississippi. 2: Jonathan Schneer's history of this river includes an account of the 1215 negotiation of the Magna Carta on its banks. the Thames. 3: Whistle a happy tune and name this Pierre Boulle World War II P.O.W. novel that was made into an Oscar-winning film. Bridge on the River Kwai. 4: Alan Moorehead published histories of these 2 main branches of the world's longest river. the Blue Nile and the White Nile. 5: 4 men on a canoe trip in this James Dickey novel fight to survive the wild Cahulawassee River and scary locals. Deliverance. Round 5. Category: Call Me Cat. With Cat in quotation marks 1: Something very appealing to people is likened to this "feline" herb of the mint family. catnip. 2: 19th c. consumers liked buying from folks they knew, so Mr. Montgomery Ward might send a personal note if you ordered from this. the catalog. 3: This No. 1 hit has haunted fathers since 1974 as they watch time pass all too quickly as their sons grow up. "Cat's In The Cradle". 4: Someone full of big talk without being able to back it up is said to be "all hat, no" this. cattle. 5: You're sitting in this idiomatic "seat" when you have a position of great advantage. the catbird seat. Thanks for listening! Come back tomorrow for more exciting trivia!Special thanks to https://blog.feedspot.com/trivia_podcasts/ AI Voices used

Gretchen Cherington joins Let's Talk Memoir for a conversation about complicated family legacies and processing sexual abuse, confronting the public view of a loved one we're writing about, protecting manuscripts before we have book contracts, corralling information and organizing heaps of material, reading broadly, building relationships and being above board with sources, and her true crime, investigative, family memoir The Butcher, the Embezzler, and the Fall Guy.   -Visit the Let's Talk Memoir Merch store: https://www.zazzle.com/store/letstalkmemoir -Take the Let's Talk Memoir survey: https://forms.gle/mctvsv9MGvzDRn8D6   Help shape upcoming Let's Talk Memoir content - a brief survey:  https://forms.gle/ueQVu8YyaHNKui2Z9   Also in this episode: -discovering an organizing principle -knowing what material to cut -reading like a memoirist   Books mentioned in this episode: Searching for Mercy Street by Linda Gray Sexton Home Before Dark by Susan Cheever Small Fry by Lisa Jobs Another Bullshit Night in Suck City by Nick Flynn Just Kids by Patti Smith Heavy by Kiese Laymon Sigh, Gone by Phuc Tran Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal by Jeanette Winterson Are You My Mother by Alison Bechdel Queen of Snails: A Graphic Memoir by Maureen Burdock Gretchen Cherington grew up the daughter of Pulitzer Prize–winning and U.S. poet laureate, Richard Eberhart. Her childhood homes were filled with literary greats from Robert Frost to Anne Sexton to James Dickey, a life she captured in her award-winning memoir, Poetic License. But like the paternal grandfather she never knew, Cherington chose a career in business where she coached hundreds of powerful men on how to change their companies and themselves. Her second book, The Butcher, the Embezzler, and the Fall Guy – a true crime, investigative, family memoir – is an exploration of the first twenty years of the meatpacking giant, Hormel Foods, as she pieces together her grandfather's role—if he had one?—in a national embezzlement scandal that nearly brought the company to its knees in 1921. Cherington served as adjunct faculty in executive programs at Harvard, Dartmouth, and Columbia and on twenty boards of directors including a multibillion-dollar B-corporation bank. Cherington's essays have appeared widely, in Huffington Post, Covey Club, Lit Hub, The Millions, Yankee, Electric Lit, Hippocampus, Quartz, and others. Her essay “Maine Roustabout” was nominated for a 2012 Pushcart Prize. Gretchen splits her time between Portland, Maine, and an eighty-year old cottage on Penobscot Bay.     Connect with Gretchen: Website: www.gretchencherington.com  X: https://twitter.com/ge_cherington Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/gretchencheringtonauthor/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gretchencheringtonauthor/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gretchen-cherington-612b3b7/ Get Gretchen's Book: https://www.amazon.com/Butcher-Embezzler-Fall-Guy-Industry/dp/1647420830/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3QYT2DHA753BP&keywords=the+butcher%2C+the+embezzler%2C+and+the+fall+guy&qid=1673298988&sprefix=The+Butcher%2C+the+Embezz%2Caps%2C81&sr=8-1 Huffington Post: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/richard-eberhart-father-me-too_n_64068645e4b0c78bb74484e6    — Ronit's writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The Rumpus, The New York Times, The Iowa Review, Hippocampus, The Washington Post, Writer's Digest, American Literary Review, and elsewhere. Her memoir WHEN SHE COMES BACK about the loss of her mother to the guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and their eventual reconciliation was named Finalist in the 2021 Housatonic Awards Awards, the 2021 Indie Excellence Awards, and was a 2021 Book Riot Best True Crime Book. Her short story collection HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE won Hidden River Arts' 2020 Eludia Award and the 2023 Page Turner Awards for Short Stories. She earned an MFA in Nonfiction Writing at Pacific University, is Creative Nonfiction Editor at The Citron Review, and lives in Seattle with her family where she teaches memoir workshops and is working on her next book. More about Ronit: https://ronitplank.com Sign up for monthly podcast and writing updates: https://bit.ly/33nyTKd   Follow Ronit: https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/ https://twitter.com/RonitPlank https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlank   Background photo credit: Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash Headshot photo credit: Sarah Anne Photography Theme music: Isaac Joel, Dead Moll's Fingers

“The thing about the systematic reduction of a woman down to her parts is that she doesn't always know it's happening while it's going on. Just one day she wakes up and realizes that all she was,was a face,a line of cleavage,two legs,a couple of hands,the swivel of her pelvis,the swell of her breast.We were just the disembodied parts in the display cases. One day we wake up to find out that the diamonds were never chocolate at all; they were brown the whole time. And our bodies, which are finally ours again, can move on all we want, though they forever remain a library of our lives — of the hurt and the shame, and of what we either allowed or didn't allow other people to get away with.”– Taffy Brodesser-Akner, The New York Times, April 23, 2019“The number of ‘likes' a photo receives is correlated with sexualization on Instagram. This partially confirmed Simone de Beauvoir's concept of self-objectification, where young women generally see themselves as objects for viewers to judge through ‘likes.'”– Amber L. Horan,“Picture This! Objectification Versus Empowerment in Women's Photos on Social Media”“In a society where media is the most persuasive force shaping cultural norms, the collective message we receive is that a woman's value and power lies in her youth, beauty, and sexuality, and not in her capacity, inner-self, or passions.”– Sonia SuarezLike most men, I've long been fascinated with women. But what, exactly, defines “woman”? Definitions are so conflicted that I believe anyone who attempts to define “woman” is certain to be criticized. But when has that ever been an impediment to a curious mind? Today's examination of the mystery and magic of women begins with a handful of quotes that show us “the perfect woman” that can exist only in the mind of a man. Psychologist Carl Jung calls her the anima. I call her, “The Imaginary Woman.”“What do we know about the goddesses, those elusive female figures, stronger than human males, more dangerous than male deities, who represent not real women but the dreams of real men?”– Alice Bach, Women in the Hebrew Bible, p. 17“I think the idealization of women is indigenous to men. There are various ways of idealizing women, especially sexually, based in almost every case on their inaccessibility. When a woman functions as an unobtainable love object, she takes on a mythical quality.”– James Dickey, Self Interviews, p. 153Miguel de Cervantes gave us a perfect example of the imaginary woman 418 years ago. Don Quixote sees a village girl in the distance – Aldonza Lorenzo by name – and says,“Her name is Dulcinea, her kingdom, Toboso, which is in La Mancha, her condition must be that of princess, at the very least, for she is my queen and lady, and her beauty is supernatural, for in it one finds the reality of all the impossible.”In the book, Don Quixote never meets Dulcinea. He sees her only from a distance. Like Helen of Troy – the face that launched 1,000 ships – Dulcinea is the anima, that perfect woman who can exist only in the imagination of a man. Everything Quixote accomplishes and endures is in her name and for her honor.“The girls in body-form slacks wander the High Street with locked hands while small transistor radios sit on their shoulders and whine love songs in their ears. The younger boys, bleeding with sap, sit on the stools of Tanger's Drugstore ingesting future pimples through straws. They watch the girls with level goat-eyes and make disparaging remarks to one another while their insides whimper with longing.”– John Steinbeck“Freda was a dazzle, a virtual watercolor of a woman...

John Orley Allen Tate (November 19, 1899 – February 9, 1979) was a poet, critic, biographer, and novelist. Born and raised in Kentucky, he earned his BA from Vanderbilt University, where he was the only undergraduate to be admitted to the Fugitives, an informal group of Southern intellectuals that included John Crowe Ransom, Donald Davidson, Merrill Moore, and Robert Penn Warren. Tate is now remembered for his association with the Fugitives and Southern Agrarians, writers who critiqued modern industrial life by invoking romanticized versions of Southern history and culture. Tate's best-known poems, including “Ode to the Confederate Dead,” confronted the relationship between an idealized past and a present he believed was deficient in both faith and tradition. Despite his commitment to developing a distinctly Southern literature, Tate's many works frequently made use of classical referents and allusions; his early writing was profoundly influenced by French symbolism and the poetry and criticism of T.S. Eliot. During the 1940s and 1950s, Tate was an important figure in American letters as editor of the Sewanee Review and for his contributions to other midcentury journals such as the Kenyon Review. As a teacher, he influenced poets including Robert Lowell, John Berryman, and Theodore Roethke, and he was friends with Hart Crane, writing the introduction to Crane's White Buildings (1926). From 1951 until his retirement in 1968, Tate was a professor of English at the University of Minnesota.In the decades that he was most active, Tate's “influence was prodigious, his circle of acquaintances immense,” noted Jones in the Dictionary of Literary Biography. James Dickey could write that Tate was more than a “Southern writer.” Dickey went on, “[Tate's] situation has certain perhaps profound implications for every man in every place and every time. And they are more than implications; they are the basic questions, the possible solutions to the question of existence. How does each of us wish to live his only life?”Allen Tate won numerous honors and awards during his lifetime, including the Bollingen Prize and a National Medal for Literature. He was the consultant in poetry at the Library of Congress and president of the National Institute of Arts and Letters.-bio via Poetry Foundation Get full access to The Daily Poem Podcast at dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe

Walter stays for one more segment before we talk about a wild story from the New York Post about a woman who quit her job as a lawyer to become a psychic for animals. James Dickey from the Upper Midwest Law Center closes out the show with the latest in litigation as we take your calls and play your talkbacks all morning long.

My Finding Freedom Forum is where I ask the question of my guests, "where are we losing freedom in America, what can we do as Americans, and what is my guest doing to protect freedom?" In the order they will be appearing is James Dickey with the Upper Mid West Law Center, Linda Rantz, who talks about returning to hand counting, Walter Daugherity .... known as Dr. D, Nicholas St Jon with the Washoe Patriots, And former Arizona State Representative Liz Harris.

Today's poem is by Theodore Huebner Roethke (/ˈrɛtki/ RET-kee;[1] May 25, 1908 – August 1, 1963), an American poet. He is regarded as one of the most accomplished and influential poets of his generation, having won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1954 for his book The Waking, and the annual National Book Award for Poetry on two occasions: in 1959 for Words for the Wind,[2] and posthumously in 1965 for The Far Field.[3][4] His work was characterized by its introspection, rhythm and natural imagery.Roethke was praised by former U.S. Poet Laureate and author James Dickey as "in my opinion the greatest poet this country has yet produced."[5] He was also a respected poetry teacher, and taught at the University of Washington for fifteen years. His students from that period won two Pulitzer Prizes for Poetry and two others were nominated for the award. "He was probably the best poetry-writing teacher ever," said poet Richard Hugo, who studied under Roethke.— bio via Wikipedia Get full access to The Daily Poem Podcast at dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe

James Dickey discusses the recent petition filed in the Minnesota Supreme Court seeking to keep former President Donald Trump off of Minnesota's 2024 primary and general election ballots, and also UMLC's new case against the “Don't Say Felon” speech code created by the legislature to shut down certain political speech in the days leading up to Minnesota elections.

Jon runs through a story on the original Brady Bunch house then words get in the way before James Dickey from the Upper Midwest Law Center joins to close the hour. They discuss the latest on Trump's 2024 ballot eligibility in the state of Minnesota and much more.

In this episode of Minnesota Law Weekly, James Dickey of the Upper Midwest Law Center discusses a common theme in some of their cases: the government can't use its investigatory power to punish citizens for speaking on politics.

Season 6 of the #crw podcast begins with the annual #wvufootball season prediction roundtable. Joined by special guests @Couz206 & @PaulMountaineer, the guys go through the 2023 #wvu schedule game-by-game to come up with their final record predictions for the upcoming season! 1:30 - Intro 2:52 - Mountaineer News Segment Begins 3:00 - Big 12 Conference Welcomes 4 New Members in 2024 3:58 - James Dickey joins the WVU Men's Basketball Staff 4:24 - Omar Silverio's Waiver Request Denied by the NCAA 4:58 - Transfer Akok Akok Commits to WVU Men's Basketball 5:49 - Nate Gabriel Joins the 2024 WVU Football Recruiting Class 7:13 - Sharing Some Record Predictions from Mountaineer Nation 8:58 - Season Prediction Roundtable Segment Begins --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/countryroadswebcast/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/countryroadswebcast/support

Título de culto que llega a Luces en el Horizonte, no es recomendable que los menores escuchen este audio. Deliverance, la obra de John Boorman basada en la novela de James Dickey: su argumento, declaraciones, curiosidades, anécdotas... Un film inolvidable que dejó huella. (Reposición de este audio) Escucha el episodio completo en la app de iVoox, o descubre todo el catálogo de iVoox Originals

Intent on seeing the Cahulawassee River before it's dammed and turned into a lake, outdoor fanatic Lewis Medlock takes his friends on a canoeing trip they'll never forget into the dangerous American back-country. Directed by John Boorman Written by James Dickey & John Boorman @thedeadlightspod

James Dickey discusses a new Minnesota law that restores the right for felons to vote. In this episode, James says the legislature failed to follow all steps and constraints set by the Constitution.

Jon spends the first part of the hour discussing the movie "Sound Of Freedom" and the criticism that has come from the left plus from the Upper Midwest Law Center James Dickey joins to discuss a variety of topics.

Are aesthetics a kind of philosophy? What is the most important photo of all time? Kris's birthday celebration, shoutout to Jay Springett, starting the day off right, The Miracle Morning, Gus encounters a passed-out junkie, Pat Murphy's Points of Departure, (JDO incorrectly states that Tea with the Black Dragon won the 1984 PKD award; it was actually The Anubis Gates; TWTBD was the runner-up), Thomas Merton, Gary Snyder's The Real Work, calamities that lead to epiphany, (the book JDO is trying to remember is Honest to God by John Robinson), Ralph Eugene Meatyard, every photograph is a self-portrait, D.H. Lawrence's paintings, the Slim Jims' Music for Tall Men Only, inclusive vs. inviting, forced limitation, “deny the veil, enjoy the view,” the Devouring Television, media creating reality, worshipping a Felix the Cat doll, the introduction of widescreen, the irreality of VHS, the return of the Third Man, what is contained in a photograph?, the most important photo of all time, repetition of imagery, the first-world sinister hug, shot-up jukeboxes in quicksand, MK Ultra Imaginative Challenge, the whim of nature, getting down in the baked beans and cream corn, pornographic thought experiment, James Dickey, the magic of guilt, and a Ben Affleck and Matt Damon dream.

James Dickey and guest Renee Carlson discuss gender policy changes and the lack of protection for children in Minnesota legislation.Read Renee's commentary: https://alphanews.org/minnesota-democrats-abandon-the-most-vulnerable/

Laura Alcoba nació en el año 1968 y vivió hasta los 10 años en Buenos Aires, cuando viajó con su madre a París, huyendo de la Dictadura. Su padre no viajó con ellas: estaba preso. En Francia estudió Letras y trabajó como editora y traductora. Su primera novela, La casa de los conejos, que cuenta la historia de una niña que vive con su madre en una casa de La Plata donde se imprime en clandestinidad el periódico Evita Montonera al comienzo de la dictadura, inició con gran impacto y celebración por parte de la crítica el ciclo autobiográfico al que le seguirían El azul de las abejas (donde narra la correspondencia con su padre, que sigue detenido) y La danza de la araña. Su último libro es A través del bosque, que reconstruye la historia de un doble infanticidio ocurrido en la conserjería de una escuela en diciembre de 1984. Treinta años después de ocurrido, Laura Alcoba vuelve a esa mañana en la que Griselda, una argentina exiliada en Francia, en uno de esos actos inconcebibles para los cuales cuesta poner un nombre, ahogó a sus dos hijos menores en la bañera luego de decirle a Claudio, su marido, que no soportaba el dolor de cabeza con el que se había despertado. Flavia, la hija mayor de la pareja, tenía seis años y sobrevivió: en el momento del episodio estaba en la escuela. Alcoba, quien conoció de chiquita a la familia porque estaban vinculados a su padre pero que había olvidado la terrible historia, habló con Flavia, con Griselda y también con personas muy cercanas a la familia, que la ayudaron a rearmar el rompecabezas de tanto horror. No hay morbo en la narración de Alcoba sino la búsqueda de la palabra justa y el equilibrio necesario para comprender lo incomprensible, para contar sin juzgar y para construir con suma belleza un relato inquietante y perturbador. En la sección En voz alta, Claudia Melnik leyó el poema “En qué sentido” de Horacio Horacio Zabaljáuregui Claudia Melnik es psicóloga, poeta, narradora e investigadora. Nació en Córdoba. Vivió en Francia y en Estados Unidos y actualmente reside en Buenos Aires. Ha publicado “Furia de Asia”, “Viajeras del beleño” y “El Miedo” en Último Reino”. En breve se publicará el Álbum de la literatura argentina y el libro Imborrables que lleva varios textos suyos, junto a otros autores como Matilde Sánchez, Luis Chitarroni, Ariel Schettini, Betina González,. Este Álbum fue editado por Club Burton y coordinado por Luis Gusmán y Salvador Gargiulo. Su último libro es la novela  “La princesa vampira”. Y en Te regalo un libro, el periodista Rodo Reich nos regaló “La violencia está en nosotros” de James Dickey, un libro del año 1970. Rodo Reich es periodista especializado en gastronomía y bebidas, con más de 20 años de experiencia. Colaborador de los diarios La Nación y Página12 (suplemento Radar), en la revista 7 Caníbales y columnista radial en los programas Tarde Para Nada y La inmensa minoría, por Radio con vos. En Bienvenidos, Hinde habló de “Contar un secreto”,  de Pablo De Santis y “Traidores, Escribir ficción con material autobiográfico”, de Natalia Zito ambos publicados por Tilde y de “In vitro” de Esabel Zapata editado por Editorial Excursiones Y en Libros que sí recomendó.  “No callar”, de Javier Cercas. Crónicas, ensayos y artículos 2000-2022, publicado por Tusquets y “Borges babilónico”, de Jorge Schwartz editado por Fondo de Cultura Económica.

Today's poem is by Theodore Huebner Roethke (/ˈrɛtki/ RET-kee;[1] May 25, 1908 – August 1, 1963), an American poet. He is regarded as one of the most accomplished and influential poets of his generation, having won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1954 for his book The Waking, and the annual National Book Award for Poetry on two occasions: in 1959 for Words for the Wind,[2] and posthumously in 1965 for The Far Field.[3][4] His work was characterized by its introspection, rhythm and natural imagery.Roethke was praised by former U.S. Poet Laureate and author James Dickey as "in my opinion the greatest poet this country has yet produced."[5] He was also a respected poetry teacher, and taught at the University of Washington for fifteen years. His students from that period won two Pulitzer Prizes for Poetry and two others were nominated for the award. "He was probably the best poetry-writing teacher ever," said poet Richard Hugo, who studied under Roethke.—Bio via Wikipedia This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe

James Dickey states that voters should have confidence that your absentee ballot will count if you follow the rules on the mail-in ballot. He also discusses unconstitutional, left-wing policies that have been passed in St. Paul and are changing the future of Minnesota.

James Dickey discusses portions of House File 3, the omnibus election policy bill, specifically the so-called “deceptive practices” part of the bill.Minnesota Law Weekly | Ep. 20 Subscribe: https://umlc.buzzsprout.com/

John J. Miller is joined by Cat Baab-Muguira to discuss James Dickey's 'Deliverance.'

Renee Carlson of True North Legal joins James Dickey from the Upper Midwest Law Center to discuss the legal fallout from this year's legislative session. 

John Hinderaker, president of the Center of the American Experiment, joins James Dickey of the Upper Midwest Law Center on this week's episode of Minnesota Law Weekly.