Recent publications
“Vollis and His Fun Machine,” in You Are the River, ed. by Helena Feder. Raleigh: NC Museum of Art, 2021: 114-118.
“Powerful Farm Poets of Eastern North Carolina.” Farmville Enterprise. 23 April 2020: A3.
“Langston Hughes Sought Solitude in Reno.” Nevada Magazine, Jan.-Feb. 2019. Read it.
“‘We Were All Famous–You Just Never Heard of Us.’ ” Appalachian Journal. vol. 44, nos.3-4; vol. 45, nos.1-2 (2017/2018): 224-233.
Books
The Forgotten First: B-1 and the Integration of the Modern Navy. Fountain, NC: R.A. Fountain, 2013. Buy it.
The Mule Poems, by A.R. Ammons (editor). Fountain, NC: R.A.Fountain, 2010. Buy it.
The North Carolina Poems, by A.R. Ammons (editor, with afterword). New & expanded edition. Lexington, KY: Broadstone Books, 2010. Buy it.
The North Carolina Poems, by A.R. Ammons (editor, with afterword) Rocky Mount, NC: North Carolina Wesleyan College P, 1994. out of print. Buy it.
Leaves of Greens: The Collard Poems. Ayden, NC: Ayden Collard Festival (co-editor with Luke Whisnant), 1984.
Dreaming the Blues: Poems from Martin County Prison. Williamston, NC: Martin County Arts Council, 1984 (editor).
Scripts
“Coming into Freedom: The End of the Civil War in Eastern North Carolina” (one-woman show starring Louise Anderson with the NC Symphony and Badgett Sisters). Writer, c0-producer, co-director. Creswell, NC: Dept. of Cultural Resources (1 Sept. 1990).
“Boogie in Black and White.” (television documentary) Chapel Hill, NC: The Center for Public Television. February, 1988 (writer/co-producer). Broadcast Feb. 1988: UNC-TV network (Arbitron ratings: 25,000 viewers). Re-broadcast Feb. 1989, UNC-TV; also broadcast on PBS affiliates in 26 states, D.C. and the Virgin Islands. Watch it.
Chapters in books
“‘Running to Catch Up: Event Becoming Word’: Ammons, Kerouac, and Their New Romantic Scrolls” in Complexities of Motion: Chaos and Order in A.R. Ammons’s Long Poems, Steven P. Schneider, ed. Fairleigh Dickinson UP, 1999: 83-113.
“‘Friend of Reason’: Surveying the Fred Davis Chappell Papers at Duke University” in Dream Garden: The Poetic Vision of Fred Chappell, Patrick Bizzaro, ed. Baton Rouge, LA, 1997: 221-240.
“Scenes from a Dream: (Nearly) Lost Images of Black Entertainers.” in Images of the South: Constructing a Regional Culture on Film and Video. Ed. Karl G. Heider. Athens, GA: U. of Georgia P, 1993. 55-76.
“Satori in Rocky Mount: Kerouac in North Carolina.” The Southern Quarterly 24.3 (Spring 1986): 35-48.
—Repr. in Kerouac at the Wild Boar. John Montgomery, ed. San Anselmo, CA: Fels & Firn Press, 1986: 29-38.
—Repr. in The Coastal Plains: Writings on the Cultures of Eastern North Carolina. Rocky Mount, NC: NC Wesleyan College P, 1989: 81-93. Buy it.
Articles & essays
“‘Cool Control of Syllables.'” rev. of The Complete Poems of A.R. Ammons. Tar River Poetry, Spring 2018.
“Carolina Bluegrass Band: Getting Good Grades from Russell Johnson.” Bluegrass Unlimited. June 2018. Buy it.
“In Memoriam: Thomas E. Douglass.” North Carolina Literary Review online, 2018
“On Bohemian Bluegrass, Beer, Some Barbecue and a Few Weeks in Prague.” storySouth, Fall 2017. n.p. online. www.storysouth.com. Read it.
“Mose McQuitty’s Band and Minstrel Days, 1899-1937.” Bandwagon: The Journal of the Circus Historical Society 60.3 (2016): 6-47.
“Prague Bluegrass Spring.” Bluegrass Unlimited. October 2016: 42-45. Buy it.
“Jim Grimsley Gets Schooled.” North Carolina Literary Review 2016 online: 32-35. Read it.
“Collards.” Encyclopedia of North Carolina. ed. by William S. Powell. Chapel Hill: UNC P, 2006: 253-54.
“Filmmaking.” Encyclopedia of North Carolina. ed. by William S. Powell. Chapel Hill: UNC P, 2006: 430-31.
“Literary Lantern.” Encyclopedia of North Carolina. ed. by William S. Powell. Chapel Hill: UNC P, 2006: 685.
“Town Documentaries.” Encyclopedia of North Carolina. ed. by William S. Powell. Chapel Hill: UNC P, 2006: 1128.
“Noon Parade and Midnight Ramble: Traveling Tent Shows in North Carolina, 1900-50.” Good Country People I.1 (Spring 1995): 61-90. Buy it.
“On Reading Paul Green’s Mail: A Conversation with Laurence G. Avery.” St. Andrews Review 46 (Summer 1994) 33-50.
“Classic Blues under Gigantic Tents.” Living Blues 24.3 (June 1993) 46-49.
“The African-American Traveling Minstrel Show” Living Blues 24.2 (April 1993) 36-41.
“Before He Went West, He had to Go South: Kerouac’s Southern Aesthetics.” North Carolina Humanities 1.2 (spring 1993) 53-70.
“Micheaux, Vaudeville, and Black Cast Film.” Black Film Review 7.4: 6-9, 36.
review of Segregated Skies: All Black Combat Squadrons of World War II, by Stanley Sandler. Washington: Smithsonian, 1992. North Carolina Historical Review 70.2 (April 1993) 234.
“Ponds and Mudbanks and Ditchbanks, Brierberries, Things of That Kind: A Conversation with A.R. Ammons.” North Carolina Literary Review 1.1 (summer 1992) 46-57. Buy it.
“Collard Greens,” in Encyclopedia of Southern Culture. William Ferris and Charles Reagan Wilson, eds. Chapel Hill: UNC P (1989).
“Mose McQuitty’s Unknown Career: A Personal History of Black Music in America.” Black Music Research Bulletin. 11.2 (Fall 1989): 1-5. Read it.
“Boogie Woogie Jams Again.” American Film 12.8 (June 1987): 36-40.
“North Carolina’s Early Movies.” The State 54.2 (July 1986): 8-11.
“Two Literary Notes” (37), “Kerouac in Carolina: A Chronology” (7-8), “Kerouac in Carolina: A Guide to People, Places & References” (38-39), “Mrs. Buddhy Tom Remembers Kerouac” (39-40), “Reply to Pancho Savery” (6) Moody Street Irregulars 16-17, 1986.
“Breaking the Race Barrier: The Navy B-1 Band.” Tar Heel Junior Historian 25.3 (1986): 13-17.
“Kerouac in Carolina.” The Reader: Literature, Reviews, and Commentary 1.1 (6 Feb. 1984): 3-4.
“Fred Chappell: Exploring Sources,” Circa [newsletter of Pitt County Arts Council], 1983: 4. With two photos of Chappell by Carlyn Ebert.
Newspaper articles
“The Poetry of A.R. Ammons.” News & Observer 4 Mar. 2001: 2D.
“Integration Pioneers Reunite in Chapel Hill,” Raleigh News and Observer. Aug. 3, 1986: 3A
“Irreplaceable Films of State’s Hometown History Need to be Preserved,” Raleigh News and Observer. Aug. 16, 1987.
“They Helped Break Navy’s Color Barrier,” Fayetteville Observer. Aug. 16, 1986: 2E.
“Off the Road with Jack Kerouac in Rocky Mount,” Raleigh News & Observer. Aug. 17, 1986: 4D.
Book Reviews
“A 69-year-old writer’s winning debut.” rev. of Tongues of Flame by Mary Ward Brown, Raleigh News & Observer. Nov. 2, 1986: 4D.
“The difficulty of fashioning art from war.” rev. of Soldiers and Civilians, edited by Tom Jenks. News & Observer. Dec. 28, 1986
“Educated bum’s life on the road in the ’30s.” rev. of Waiting for Nothing and Other Writings, by Tom Kramer. News & Observer. Feb. 1, 1987.
“The unfulfilled promise of Truman Capote.” rev. of Truman Capote: Dear Heart, Old Buddy, by Malcolm Brinnin, News & Observer. Feb. 22, 1987: 4D.
“An impressive first novel about missed connections.” rev. of The Second Bridge, by Gary Gildner. News & Observer. Mar 15, 1987: 4D.
“Glory’s bottom line, in war and peace.” rev. of Paths of Glory, by Humphrey Cobb. News & Observer, Apr. 12, 1987.
“Paul Auster’s brilliant, bizarre letter from the city.” rev. of In the Country of Last Things, by Paul Auster. News & Observer, May 3, 1987: 5D.
“The women in Knute’s life, then and again.” rev. of Knute, and Knute Again, by William Warner. News & Observer, June 28, 1987: 4D.
“Tree Indian women and a story too short.” rev. of A Yellow Raft in Blue Water, by Michael Dorris. News & Observer, Aug. 9, 1987: 4D.
“The light on the surface, and the truer colors below.” rev. of First Light, by Charles Baxter, News & Observer. Sept. 20, 1987: 5D.
rev. of I Remember: 80 Years of Black Entertainment, Big Bands, and the Blues, by Clyde E.B. Bernhardt. Greensboro News & Record. Sept. 27, 1987: E5.
“Hanna pines for the one that got away.” rev. of Hey Jack, by Barry Hannah. News & Observer, Oct. 25, 987: 4D.
rev. of I Remember Jazz, by Al Rose. Greensboro News & Record. Oct. 25, 1987: E5.
“An old friend cranks it up again.” rev. of Bluebeard, by Kurt Vonnegut. News & Observer, Nov. 15, 1987: 5D.
rev. of World’s End, by T. Coraghessan Boyle. News & Observer. Dec. 20, 1987: 5D.
rev. of The Western Lands, by William S. Burroughs. Greensboro News & Record. Feb. 7, 1988: E5.
rev. of Krazy Kat, by Jay Cantor. News & Observer, Mar. 6, 1988: 4D.
rev. of A Boy’s Pretensions, by Anthony Giardiana, News & Observer. Apr. 24, 1988: 5D.
“The unpretty South of Harry Crews.” rev. of The Knockout Artist, by Harry Crews. News & Observer 29 Mar. 1988: 4D.
EP & CD liner notes
“Pitch a Boogie Woogie.” [EP] Greenville, NC: Chinstrap Productions, 1988. Read it.
“Manana Meteors Live / “Pitch a Boogie Woogie” [CD] Fountain, NC: R.A. Fountain, 2015. Buy it.
Papers presented at scholarly meetings
“Rusco & Hockwald’s Georgia Minstrels of 1926,” Nevada Historical Society, Reno, NV. 7 Jan 2009.
“Behind the Masks: Early African-American Vaudeville,” Mississippi Humanities Commission, Port Gibson, MS; July 3, 2006,
“Ammons, Kerouac, and Their New Romantic Scrolls,” MLA, Chicago, 27 Dec. 1995.
“Private Lives, Public Papers, and Closure: The Fred Davis Chappell Papers at Duke University,” SAMLA, Atlanta, 4 Nov. 1995
“MLA Meets Art: Editing and Design in the North Carolina Literary Review.” Popular Culture Association, New Orleans, 20 April 1993.
“Before He Went West, He Had to Go South: Kerouac’s Southern Aesthetics. Southern Humanities Council. Chapel Hill, NC: 14 Feb. 1992
“Understanding Vaudeville: Early Black Entertainers, Their Roots, and Their Influences on American Entertainment.” NEH Summer Institute Behind the Veil: African American Life in the Jim Crow South. Center for Documentary Studies, Duke U, Durham, NC: 17 July 1991.
“Establishing the Regional Archive: The NC Film Project Begins.” Fast-Rewind II. Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, NY: 15 June 1991.
“Greenville’s Warner Brothers: Their Dream and Its Undoing.” Future Arts. Duke University, Durham, NC: 17 May 1991.
“Boogie in Black and White: (Nearly) Lost Images of Black Entertainers.” (Key Symposium Address) Southern Anthropological Society. Columbia, SC: 20 April 1991.
“Beyond TOBY Time and Shuffle Along: Where the Other Black Entertainers Were.” Popular Culture Assn. Toronot, Ontario, Canada: 9 March 1990.
“Early North Carolina Film Documents: Restoration and Preservation.” Popular and American Culture in the South. Knoxville, TN: 9 Oct. 1988
“Silas Green from New Orleans: Last of the Great Traveling Minstrel Shows.” Popular Culture Association. New Orleans, LA: March 24, 1988.
“‘Pitch a Boogie Woogie’: Text and Re-Text.” Florida State Film and Video Conference. Tallahassee, FL: January 30, 1988.
“Traveling Man: 40 Years on the Road with Mose McQuitty.” Popular Culture Association. Montreal, Canada: March 28, 1987.
“Preserving the Way We Were: Small Town Documentaries.” Florida State Film and Video Conference. Tallahassee, FL: January 30, 1987.
Professional Activities
Faculty. Creative nonfiction workshop. North Carolina Writers Network, Greenville NC, July 2018.
Editor, North Carolina Literary Review 1991-1996. Awards: Best New Journal, CELJ, 1994; Best in Show, magazine/journal, Aldus Mag, 1993; The 100 Show, American Center for Design, 1994; Gold medal, graphic design, Creative Club of Atlanta; Applied Arts Awards Annual, design excellence, 1995, 1996; 13 others, 1992-96.
Faculty. Creative nonfiction workshop,Duke University Writers’ Workshop, June 5-10, 1994.
Consultant. PBS documentary on Moms Mabley. Gilbert Moses, Director. 1993-94
Consultant. PBS documentary on Buckminster Fuller, WNET, 1994.
Scholar/Speaker, NC Humanities Council Speakers Bureau, 1990-2020.
NEH Fellowship for College Teachers, Center for Black Music Research, Columbia College, Chicago. Summer 1990.
Director, North Carolina Film Project, 1990-93.