Periodically over the course of the new year, we will produce two lists to highlight a few of each month's new albums. This list spans multiple genres, with each album ordered best to worst – the first list is the former, the second is the latter. Of the 50 albums in both lists, these are the Ones You Can't Miss - - -    🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 Stellar    Bill Fay – Countless Braches An absolutely gorgeous album, despite the songwriter’s age and distance from his previous work. The music has a unified mood, but each…

When I tell people I am from Eastern Kentucky, someone usually makes a joke about the old film, Deliverance, or Colonel Sanders.   There are several ideas and stereotypes about my home state that are not all too positive in nature. Delving into those is for another day, however. Right now I want to take you on a journey through Eastern Kentucky, and show you that it is more than a stereotype. It is a place worth exploring.       Red River Gorge   The Red River Gorge is a place unknown to most unless you…

  Hello, and thank you for dropping by to devote these microseconds to a meeting of our minds. That's an appropriate opener for the year 2020. This article was the editor's idea. No really, they said to tell everyone about the life of a writer. I will tell you right now that I press buttons on a flat electronic device in patterns that cause checks to arrive in the mail. Now that I have that dunked, a whole article is left to fill.  I just don't do autobiography well, but as I understand it some of…

  I recall the first time a guy thought he had some unspoken right to my body, as he tried to force me into bed with him. I was able to get out of the situation before it escalated, but that moment haunted me for years. I was angry with him, but my anger did not come close to the shame I felt. I blamed myself, though the situation was entirely out of my control. I did not tell anyone about it for almost eight years   Instead, I let the shadows of shame creep in and set up residence. I began to have…