RiverVue Article Archives
Suicide and the South
by Penne J. Laubenthal When he was only 31 years old, the brilliant and talented John Kennedy Toole killed himself by using a garden hose to asphyxiate himself with exhaust fumes from his car. His read more...
Dr. Milly Caudle: A Renaissance Woman for a Renaissance Town
by Penne J. Laubenthal Milly Caudle, affectionately known as “Red,” is a petite dynamo who was appointed a year and a half ago to fill the unexpired term of Athens City Councilman read more...
Resurrection
by Penne J. Laubenthal Birthdays are often opportunities for self-examination and reflection. Some birthdays provoke more introspection than others. A couple of years ago I decided it was time for me to "live deliberately," in the words of Thoreau: read more...
Wynton and Willie and the Blues
by Penne J. Laubenthal The Marsalis family and Willie Nelson and I go way back. I have been a fan read more...
Guest blog by Bebe Gish Shaw: Magical Mississippi Tour
There are magical moments in teaching which remind us that we do not teach to live but rather live to teach, and Saturday, April 19, 2008, was one of those halcyon days of academic heaven in which one goes into third person, watching himself watching the wonderment sparkle in read more...
Eddie Hinton Does Porretta--Again!
by Penne J. Laubenthal Eighteen years ago in April of 1991 an Italian named Graziano Uliani, founder of the
New York City Southern Style: Alabama Studio Weekend in the Shoals
by Penne J. Laubenthal Imagine starting off your Saturday morning with the perfect Bloody Mary, garnished in typical southern fashion with pickled okra, and served to you by one of the country’s foremost clothing designers,
Natasha Trethewey: Winner of the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry
by Penne J. Laubenthal Pulitzer Prize winner Natasha Trethewey is a poet who gives voice to the voiceless, names to the nameless, and who creates read more...
Poems by Natasha Trethewey
Miscegenation In 1965 my parents broke two laws of Mississippi; they went to Ohio to marry, returned to Mississippi. They crossed the river into Cincinnati, a city whose name begins with a sound like sin, the sound of read more...
Billy Bob Thornton in Florence, Alabama
by Penne J. Laubenthal Severe weather warnings had been issued for North Alabama when I made my way to Florence for the Friday afternoon session of the 11th Annual George Lindsey Film Festival featuring
Sena Jeter Naslund and Growing Up in the Segregated South
Four Spirits, a novel by Birmingham native Sena Jeter Naslund based on the aftermath of the1963 bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church that killed four little girls, made its world premiere read more...
Deryle Perryman and Dangerous Highway, a Film About Eddie Hinton
by Penne J. Laubenthal Dangerous Highway is an amazing documentary about the life and music of the incredibly talented and tragically fated Eddie Hinton, called the "greatest unknown
Darius Goes West: Twelve Guys and a Dream
Once in a great while, just when you think there is no reason to get up in the morning and that there is no hope for humanity, and that people will just go on killing one another forever, and that tomorrow will be probably be even worse than today, then something happens to turn read more...
Logan Smalley: Creator and Director of Darius Goes West
In 2005 Logan Smalley, a special education major at the University of Georgia-Athens, undertook a venture that would change his life, not to mention the lives of those who view his amazing film. Smalley rented a handicapped accessible RV, recruited ten
Fifth Annual Oxford Film Festival
The Fifth Annual Oxford Film Festival (OFF) will open Wednesday evening, read more...
Billy C Farlow is Having Too Much Fun
by Penne J. Laubenthal Billy C Farlow, blues musician, song writer, and harmonica player who skyrocketed to fame in the early ‘70s with Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen, is a force to be reckoned with read more...
Confessions of an Auburn Fan or It's Not Easy Being Orange (and Blue)
by Penne Jones Laubenthal The state of Alabama is a red state. It has been slowly turning red politically since 1960. In the past twenty-seven years, Alabama voters read more...
Interview with Charles Ghigna
by Penne J. Laubenthal Charles Ghigna (aka Father Goose) is the author of more than 5,000 poems and 30 award-winning books of poetry. His books have been featured on ABC-TV’s "Good Morning America" and read more...
Hunting the Cotaco Creek
by Charles Ghigna His hand in hold so trigger tight even its blood believes in ghosts. It clings with set finger on steel and waits inside a dream of ducks. The twilight gives into a rise of eastern sky as sun reveals herself too proud read more...
Baseball Dreams
by Charles Ghigna In memory of Jack Marsh, second baseman, Yale University, 1943 Before the bayonet replaced the bat, Jack Marsh played second base for Yale; his spikes anchored into the August clay, his eyes set deep read more...
Shacks on Highway 231, Along the High Red Clay Embankments
By Bonnie Roberts These words are for those who never wrote a word, or sang a song, or thought a great thought, or invented something, or made something lasting. These words are for those who lived extraordinary read more...
Auger and Old Shoes
by Eric Smith I. On her rocker’s each forward pitch she glimpses the scuffed toes of shoes down the hall, read more...
My South
By Doris Gabel Welch My South is
Phillip Quinn Morris
Phillip Quinn Morris, author of Mussels and
W.C. Handy Music Festival, Florence, Alabama, July 22-29
“If Beale Street could talk Married men would have to take up their beds and walk…” Beale Street Blues W. C. Handy wrote those words when he was read more...
Cassandra King
Alabama native Cassandra King is not only the wife of author Pat Conroy, but she is also a celebrated novelist in her own right. She is currently touring the South to promote her most recent novel
Clifton Taulbert at the 6th Annual Writers Conference
Ah, April in Alabama---blistering sun one day, pouring rain the next. A certainty regarding the South is that one just has to wait long enough and the weather will change. Outside the conference building at Calhoun Community College in Decatur, Alabama, a precious rain is falling, read more...
Alabama Adventure Weekend
It is Earth Day 2007 and the Alabama sun is unseasonably hot. Summer is still two months away, but the living is already easy, especially in the Shoals area of North Alabama where I am spending the day at the