What gives a writer the urge to create new work? In the case of Southern Appalachian Storytellers: Interviews with Sixteen Keepers of the Oral Tradition, published by McFarland, it was one person - Dot Jackson.
At the time I met Dot, a former investigative reporter, and editor from South Carolina, I was working on my master’s degree at East Tennessee State University in Johnson City. I had met Billee Moore earlier, and it was she who decided Dot and I needed to make acquaintance. At her invitation, I drove to her cabin in North Carolina. Waiting at Billee’s for Dot (she was in Galax. VA giving a talk), I took a nap. I awakened later that afternoon to something storytellers love more than anything - the human voice telling stories.
