Joe Samuel Starnes's Blog

Fortune smiled on me in early 2024 while I had time tokill on Tuesday afternoons while my daughter practiced French horn in an honors band. My discoveryof a charming, quirky driving range with a Jersey Devil sign led to my essay, "The Devil at the Driving Range," inthe newest issue of The Golfer’s Journal. The story culminates with myscoring an unexpected par in the dark on No. 18 at Pebble Beach. Youcan read it for free online if you register, but I recommend purchasing the sumptuous print edition.

One behind the scenes detail: Between the time I was at the range in the late winter and when the photographer visited in the summer, the devil sign was repainted on a new piece of plywood. At left is how it looked when I hit it (compare that with the photo in the magazine). And below is the video proof that I did in fact hit it. 

I also have proof that I did play Pebble Beach. See the photo below taken by my brother Dan of me hitting a 3-iron over the 18th green in the dark at Pebble on the way to an unlikely par.

Seventeen years ago I wrote a piece about Willie Nelson's long-running Fourth of July picnics for the New York Times when Willie was a mere 74 years old. Much like his biographer, Joe Nick Patoski, I figured he was near the end of a iconic career. I never dreamed I would be going to see his annual July 4 picnic (in Camden, New Jersey, of all places) in 2024 and writing about. But that's exactly what happened. I very much appreciate The Bitter Southerner including "Stay a Little Longer" in print edition No. 9. I suspect the story will be shared online at some point in the future, and I will share when it is, but for now you can subscribe or buy a print copy. I'm happy to be published in the Bitter Southerner again, where I published a piece about Hank Aaron ten years ago, long before the they had a print edition. I also was fortunate in the writing of this story to connect with Joe Nick, a Texas music writing legend I've long admired.

I reported and wrote "Sanders from Cedartown," analmost 10,000 word piece about Doug Sanders, which appears in the newest issue ofThe Golfer’s Journal. I'm from Cedartown, Georgia myself, which is home to The Doug Sanders Golf Museum, and I know the turf well. He was one of a kind—the only golfer I know of whose many girlfriends included the actress who played Elly May Clampett and who hustled Evel Knievel in gambling.  My story is the longestone the magazine has ever run. An online link is available, but Irecommend buying issue No. 29 to get the print edition.

Leth Oun, Tim Lounibos (the narrator of Leth's audiobook), and I are thrilled to be finalists for the Audie Awards, the equivalent of the Oscars for audiobooks. We are in remarkable company. Winners to be announced March 4. For more, visit lethounbook.com and follow our Facebook feed for regular updates.

I was excited to hear today's Philadelphia Inquirer landing on my lawn this morning as it featured a full page story about Leth Oun's "remarkable life," as writer Rita Giordano describes it.
She writes about A Refugee's American Dream: From the Killing Fields of Cambodia to the U.S. Secret Service , "That one person could go from a little boy too afraid to show fear to a man who protects presidents is an incredible journey by anyone’s standards.” 

Here is the link to the online version, which features additional photographs.

 

From early in my career as a newspaper reporter to freelancing to the last 14 years writing for universities, I’ve been fortunate to write hundreds of profiles of fascinating people from all walks of life. I am particularly blessed that I met Leth Oun at Widener University in 2011 when I wrote a magazine article about him. We stayed in touch and, in 2017, I began working with him to turn his rough draft of his amazing life story into A Refugee’s American Dream: From the Killing Fields of Cambodia to the U.S. Secret Service.Today is its official publication day. I want to thank Temple University Press for publishing it, those of you who have bought it, and most importantly, Leth for allowing me to work with him on his important story. It’s an honor to be his coauthor. Please check out lethounbook.com for more information and follow us online for news about the book and announcements about forthcoming events.

An advance Kirkus review posted online today praises Leth Oun’s forthcoming book, A Refugee’s American Dream: From the Killing Fields of Cambodia to the U.S. Secret Service, as “A truly heartening story of sheer determination and the will to survive and thrive.” Read the full review. 
It will be released by Temple University Press on February 10. Stay tuned for the announcement of launch events.

It has been an honor and a privilege to be the coauthor of Leth Oun's life story. A Refugee’s American Dream: From the Killing Fields of Cambodia to the U.S. Secret Service will be published by Temple University Press in February 2023.

On a tour of the White House with Leth Oun in 2019

I’m happy to announce that A Refugee’s American Dream: From the Killing Fields of Cambodia to the U.S. Secret Service, which is by Leth Oun with me as coauthor, is under contract to be published by Temple University Press in 2023. Born in Cambodia in 1966, Leth was nine when his father, an officer in the Cambodian army, was executed by the invading Khmer Rouge. Leth was enslaved for almost four years in the Killing Fields, where he almost starved to death, lost many loved ones to the atrocities committed by the Khmer Rouge, and at one point was tortured. After the Killing Fields, he spent one year homeless and then three years in refugee camps before he immigrated to America at the age of seventeen, penniless and speaking very little English. He worked numerous minimum wage jobs and persevered to earn a college degree and ultimately become an officer in the Secret Service, where he has served since 2002 and has fulfilled countless assignments under four presidential administrations, including handling a dog trained to detect explosives. His life story is one of being a witness to one of the worst genocides in history, of tragedy, survival, and recovery, and of finding success in America. It also is a story of his love for two countries, for his family, for his dogs, and for his life as a U.S. Secret Service officer.

I met Leth when he stepped into my office on a sleepy summer afternoon in 2011 when I was the editor of Widener University’s alumni magazine. That meeting eventually led to our close friendship and this book, which has proved to be the hardest yet most fulfilling writing project I’ve taken on, an experience that has changed me for the better. Leth wrote a short first draft and through several years of numerous interviews, additional writing, and revisions, which were assisted by Dr. Barbara Ryan, professor emerita of sociology who taught Leth at Widener, we expanded and completed the book. His story for me is not just his American dream, but a dream of America as a place that embraces immigrants of all races and religions and welcomes them into our family, a story that fulfils what the Statue of Liberty symbolizes. Serving as coauthor for Leth—who introduced me to his fellow Secret Service officers as “my brother” when he took my family on a tour of the White House—is an honor that has been more rewarding than I could have ever have imagined when I answered his knock on my office door.

Even though I’ve been “gone off up north” for twenty years, I lived my first thirty-three years in the Deep South and all of my fiction has focused on southern characters. I’m honored that southern fiction scholar Jean W. Cash, author of biographies of Flannery O’Connor and Larry Brown, selected me as one of nineteen authors to be featured in Twenty-First-Century Southern Writers: New Voices, New Perspectives published by the University Press of Mississippi. Kevin Catalano, whose excellent fiction deserves a wide audience and will earn him many accolades in the future, did a fine job with his essay “Joe Samuel Starnes: A Devoted Disciple of the Rough South Gospel” that explores my novels Calling, Fall Line, and Red Dirt.