WestVirginiaVille

Leaving the Oregonian Rivendell of the Fishtrap writers workshop experience, a vast wasteland presents itself, full of cattle drives out of the 19th century, bearded wanderers on bicycle and the dry tang of the Empty Quarter.

I would, were I able, drive straight into the highest of the peaks ahead, to that notch where snow sits upon a single peak as on a glacier. Why didn’t someone tell me of Oregon before?

I could be writing. Have I lost a decade to my absent Muses? I have come to re-set the percentages, torque down the technology. To ratchet up the paragraphs. To sleep around with more verbs. To flirt with nouns. My first, best lover: words.

Former porn star Annie Sprinkle and Beth Stephens, her West-Virginia-born artist wife, marry the Appalachian Mountains. Larry Gibson is there and lots and lots of purple performers.

Encountering former porn star Annie Sprinkle in a West Virginia restaurant, she and her West Virginia native wife reveal their upcoming Purple Wedding to the Mountains.

Should you ever get the bright idea to drive 800 miles to Chattanooga down-and-back in one day to rescue your son’s burned-up Honda, think again. A first-person cautionary tale.