Ask the Author: Luke Bauserman
Answered Questions (7)
Luke Bauserman
Thank you, Jacqueline! November Witch is nearing completion, you can expect it in the next few months. I'll have an official publication date for you soon.
Luke Bauserman
That is correct, Cindy. Six Tales from Sixmile Creek is a companion ebook to Some Dark Holler that tells the actual history and folklore that inspired the story. I offer free copies to anyone who reads Some Dark Holler, not for review, but as bonus material for readers who want to know more. If you go to www.lukebauserman.com you'll see where you can get your copy right on the homepage. Hope this helps and let me know if you have any trouble getting it.
Luke Bauserman
The tombstone sank lower and lower, pulled into the earth by some unseen force. Jesse’s eyes gaped like curtainless windows, this time it wasn’t a dream.
Luke Bauserman
Finish your first draft! Writing takes discipline, making yourself finish a whole draft of a novel-length project is a huge accomplishment. You'll learn a lot along the way and you can't effectively revise something that isn't finished.
Luke Bauserman
Music is a major inspiration for my writing. I was seventeen the first time I heard Dwight Yoakam and the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s version of “Some Dark Holler,” and the song’s title immediately lodged itself in my brain, I remember thinking that it would make a great title for a southern gothic novel. That same year I discovered Manly Wade Wellman’s Appalachian fantasy stories, and I recollect being struck by the notion that someday I would also write some fiction inspired by Appalachian folklore.
Seven years and a Bachelor’s Degree in History later, I had acquired a taste for all kinds of obscure history books, primary sources in particular. I discovered a book about the American Civil War written by a man who’d served as a private in the Union Army. The whole book was fascinating due to its raw, first-hand nature, but there was one anecdote that completely floored me: the description of a Civil War refugee camp that sheltered women and children from Southern Appalachia.
When I read about destitute, Civil War widows “saturating their children’s minds” with a desire for revenge on those who had murdered their fathers, I instantly thought of my book idea. Some Dark Holler suddenly began to take shape in my mind: the story of a boy coerced into murdering an innocent Civil War veteran by his widowed mother.
The following passage is the catalyst that led to the characters of Ephraim and Lucretia Cutler:
At Stevenson [Alabama] there was a large refugee camp, where many women and children and a few crippled or age-enfeebled men had sought refuge from attacks by murderous bands of guerrillas. . . . These pretended soldiers, it mattered not which uniform they disgraced by wearing, were, almost without exception, robbers and murderers, who sought to enrich themselves by plundering their defenseless neighbors. They rode through the Southern Highlands, killing men, burning houses, stealing cattle and horses. Today a band of guerrillas, alleged Unionists, ravaged a mountain district. They killed their personal enemies, whom they said were Confederate sympathizers, and destroyed their property. Tomorrow other guerrillas burned Union men’s houses and shot so-called Union men to death. This relentless, mountain warfare was exceedingly hard on woman and children. Agriculture was suspended in the highlands. No man dared to till his lean fields for fear that some hidden enemy might kill him. No stack of unthrashed grain or garner of corn was safe from the torch. The defenseless women and children were starved out of their homes, and they sought safety and food within the Union lines. Our government established extensive camps for these war- stricken Southerners. Curious to see these people I spent a day in camp at Stevenson. I saw hundreds of tall, gaunt, frouzy- headed, snuff-dipping, pipe-smoking, unclean women. Some were clad in homespun stuffs, others in calico, others in bagging. Many of them were unshod. There were hundreds and hundred of vermin-infested and supremely dirty children in the camp. Some families lived in tents, some in flimsy barracks. All lived in discomfort. All drew rations from the government. All were utterly poor. It seemed that they were too poor to ever again get a start in life. Haggard, wind and sun- and storm- burnt women, their gaunt forms showing plainly through their rags, sat or lolled or stood in groups, talking drawlingly. Their features were as expressionless as wood, their eyes lustreless. I talked to many of these women. All told stories of murder, of arson, of blood-curdling scenes. One, gray-eyed, bony, square- jawed, barefooted, forty years old, clad in a dirty, ragged, homespun dress, sat on a log outside of a tent sucking a corncob pipe. Her tow-headed children played around her. She told me that before the war she and her husband owned a mountain farm, where they lived in comfort; that they owned horses, cattle, and pigs, and raised plenty of corn and tobacco. One day her husband, who was a Union man, was shot as he stood by her side in the door of their house. She buried him in a grave she dug herself. She and her children tended the crops. These were burned shortly after they gathered them. Then her swine were stolen, and her cows and horse driven off. Finally, her oldest son, a boy of fourteen, was shot dead at the spring, and her house and barn were burned in broad daylight, and she and her children were left homeless and without food on a desolate mountainside. Many of her neighbors had been burned out the same day. They joined forces and wandered down the mountain, hungry, cold, with little children tugging at the women’s dresses, to a Union camp. From here they had been sent to Stevenson. Long before this woman had finished her story she rose to her feet, her face was white with intense passion, her eyes blazed with fire, and her gaunt form quivered with excitement as she gesticulated savagely. She said that if she lived, and her boys lived, she would have vengeance on the men who had murdered her husband and son, and destroyed her home. As she talked so talked all. These women were saturating their children’s minds with the stories of the wrongs they had endured. I heard them repeat over and over to their children the names of men which they were never to forget, and whom they were to kill when they had sufficient strength to hold a rifle. The stolid manners, the wooden faces, the lustreless eyes, the drawling speech of these people, concealed the volcanoes of fire and wrath which burned within their breasts. It was easy to foresee the years of bloodshed, of assassination, of family feuds, that would spring from the recollection of the war, handed from widowed others to savage-tempered sons, in the mountain recesses of Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, and Kentucky. And long after the war closed rifles continued to crack in remote mountain glens, as the open accounts between families were settled. - THE RECOLLECTIONS OF A PRIVATE SOLDIER BY FRANK WILKESON, G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS, 1886.
Seven years and a Bachelor’s Degree in History later, I had acquired a taste for all kinds of obscure history books, primary sources in particular. I discovered a book about the American Civil War written by a man who’d served as a private in the Union Army. The whole book was fascinating due to its raw, first-hand nature, but there was one anecdote that completely floored me: the description of a Civil War refugee camp that sheltered women and children from Southern Appalachia.
When I read about destitute, Civil War widows “saturating their children’s minds” with a desire for revenge on those who had murdered their fathers, I instantly thought of my book idea. Some Dark Holler suddenly began to take shape in my mind: the story of a boy coerced into murdering an innocent Civil War veteran by his widowed mother.
The following passage is the catalyst that led to the characters of Ephraim and Lucretia Cutler:
At Stevenson [Alabama] there was a large refugee camp, where many women and children and a few crippled or age-enfeebled men had sought refuge from attacks by murderous bands of guerrillas. . . . These pretended soldiers, it mattered not which uniform they disgraced by wearing, were, almost without exception, robbers and murderers, who sought to enrich themselves by plundering their defenseless neighbors. They rode through the Southern Highlands, killing men, burning houses, stealing cattle and horses. Today a band of guerrillas, alleged Unionists, ravaged a mountain district. They killed their personal enemies, whom they said were Confederate sympathizers, and destroyed their property. Tomorrow other guerrillas burned Union men’s houses and shot so-called Union men to death. This relentless, mountain warfare was exceedingly hard on woman and children. Agriculture was suspended in the highlands. No man dared to till his lean fields for fear that some hidden enemy might kill him. No stack of unthrashed grain or garner of corn was safe from the torch. The defenseless women and children were starved out of their homes, and they sought safety and food within the Union lines. Our government established extensive camps for these war- stricken Southerners. Curious to see these people I spent a day in camp at Stevenson. I saw hundreds of tall, gaunt, frouzy- headed, snuff-dipping, pipe-smoking, unclean women. Some were clad in homespun stuffs, others in calico, others in bagging. Many of them were unshod. There were hundreds and hundred of vermin-infested and supremely dirty children in the camp. Some families lived in tents, some in flimsy barracks. All lived in discomfort. All drew rations from the government. All were utterly poor. It seemed that they were too poor to ever again get a start in life. Haggard, wind and sun- and storm- burnt women, their gaunt forms showing plainly through their rags, sat or lolled or stood in groups, talking drawlingly. Their features were as expressionless as wood, their eyes lustreless. I talked to many of these women. All told stories of murder, of arson, of blood-curdling scenes. One, gray-eyed, bony, square- jawed, barefooted, forty years old, clad in a dirty, ragged, homespun dress, sat on a log outside of a tent sucking a corncob pipe. Her tow-headed children played around her. She told me that before the war she and her husband owned a mountain farm, where they lived in comfort; that they owned horses, cattle, and pigs, and raised plenty of corn and tobacco. One day her husband, who was a Union man, was shot as he stood by her side in the door of their house. She buried him in a grave she dug herself. She and her children tended the crops. These were burned shortly after they gathered them. Then her swine were stolen, and her cows and horse driven off. Finally, her oldest son, a boy of fourteen, was shot dead at the spring, and her house and barn were burned in broad daylight, and she and her children were left homeless and without food on a desolate mountainside. Many of her neighbors had been burned out the same day. They joined forces and wandered down the mountain, hungry, cold, with little children tugging at the women’s dresses, to a Union camp. From here they had been sent to Stevenson. Long before this woman had finished her story she rose to her feet, her face was white with intense passion, her eyes blazed with fire, and her gaunt form quivered with excitement as she gesticulated savagely. She said that if she lived, and her boys lived, she would have vengeance on the men who had murdered her husband and son, and destroyed her home. As she talked so talked all. These women were saturating their children’s minds with the stories of the wrongs they had endured. I heard them repeat over and over to their children the names of men which they were never to forget, and whom they were to kill when they had sufficient strength to hold a rifle. The stolid manners, the wooden faces, the lustreless eyes, the drawling speech of these people, concealed the volcanoes of fire and wrath which burned within their breasts. It was easy to foresee the years of bloodshed, of assassination, of family feuds, that would spring from the recollection of the war, handed from widowed others to savage-tempered sons, in the mountain recesses of Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, and Kentucky. And long after the war closed rifles continued to crack in remote mountain glens, as the open accounts between families were settled. - THE RECOLLECTIONS OF A PRIVATE SOLDIER BY FRANK WILKESON, G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS, 1886.
Luke Bauserman
Long drives in the country while looking at road names, and reading song lyrics before bed.
Luke Bauserman
November Witch - The Redemption of Ephraim Cutler Book Two!
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