It’s a good question: Why in the world would a white boy from Mississippi presume to write about race. I’ve been pondering it a lot. Especially after the Academy Awards and the many comments swirling around comparisons between Spike Lee’s Black Klansman and Best Picture winner Green Book, which reminded everyone of when Lee’s Do … Read more
We all have self-doubt, creative people probably more so than anyone. I’ve considered myself an artist of one sort or another since before I was old enough to go to school and my mother set up an easel for me next to hers and I made my first oil painting. I majored in art in … Read more
Mud Flat Press asked friends to contribute questions for an interview with MFP author and co-founder Alec Clayton. Interviewed by Ricker Winsor (author of Tic Toc, The Painting of My Life, and Pakuwon City), Ned Hayes, (author of The Eagle Tree, Sinful Folk, and Coeur D’Alene Waters, and publisher of OLY ARTS), Christian Carvajal (author … Read more
Jack Butler’s novel Living in Little Rock with Miss Little Rock was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. His poems, short stories and other writings have been published in The New Yorker, Atlantic, and New York Times Book Review, Poetry, Southern Poetry Review and other publications. Mud Flat Press is proud to have published his Practicing … Read more
Ricker Winsor is a painter, writer and world traveler. He has worked as a photojournalist, cabinetmaker, teacher, and as a Delta blues musician, guitar and vocal. Ricker is an expatriate living in Surabaya, Indonesia with his Chinese Indonesian wife, Jovita. His essays and short fiction have been published at “Reflets du Temps” in France and … Read more
To use a comma or an exclamation point or no punctuation at all, that is the question. Less punctuation is a trend that is popular with modern writers. Quotation marks are becoming obsolete. Editors slice superfluous words, including words they think are superfluous but might not be (Microsoft Word’s grammar check is notorious for this). … Read more
Lynn Savage is the author of Mr. Klein’s Wild Ride. Mud Flat Press sat down with Lynn (via email) to question her about the book. MFP: Gary and Summer Klein’s lives are shaken when Gary is offered the job of publicizing “Panerotic,” the new “Disneyland of Sex.” Beyond that basic description and avoiding spoilers, … Read more
In a letter to me sometime around 1980 the poet Harry Calhoun raved about Flannery O’Connor’s short stories so much that I ran out to the local bookstore and bought Flannery O’Conner the Complete Stories. As well as I can remember, the only thing I had read of hers at the time was “A Good … Read more
I have no formal education in writing other than a single class, which I vaguely remember as being called Creative Writing 101. Students wrote short stories; teacher critiqued them. I recall writing one story that wasn’t too bad and one that was terrible. My first attempt at novel writing came between undergrad and grad school. … Read more