The brilliant yellow purse screams, “Look at me; look at me,” from the top shelf of the Merle Norman counter. “Wow, what a cool bag,” I think to myself as I lay out cash for a new tube of lipstick.

Anne Woodford was a witch. That was the only conclusion my 10-year-old mind could whittle out as I watched her place the giant copper pot on the stovetop and then open the thick, leather-bound book with yellowed pages.

She emerged in the fall of 2004. Autumn colors blanketed the landscape, and winter was pressing in. Threats of snow graced everyone’s mind, and nighttime temperatures slipped in and out of freezing.

Poets are always taking the weather so personally. They’re always sticking their emotions in things that have no emotion. J.D. Salinger

I once packed a mason jar of soil

I.

A winter afternoon, and fishing conditions are far from ideal: a cloudless sky and brilliant sun, its shard-like refractions ricocheting off the gin-clear creek and somehow darting behind my sunglasses. The temperature has climbed to nearly 40, but the sunshine and absence of wind makes it feel warmer. A shade too warm for the wool […]

Donated books reveal the inner lives of readers

Culinary traditions are integral in tying families and friends together. Joyful celebrations of holidays, weddings and births or somber gatherings, such as funerals, have food at their core. Writer Crystal Wilkinson, Kentucky’s poet laureate from 2021-2023, examines this theme in her new book Praisesong for the Kitchen Ghosts: Stories and Recipes from Five Generations of […]

By John W. McCauley, Lexington