Preaching the Gospel of Regional Writers

On April 5 two years ago, my good friend Tina Carlson and I drove from her home in Santa Fe to the Scissortail Literary Festival in Ada, Oklahoma. Scissortail was the discovery of a lifetime—three days hearing fellow writers read poetry, fiction, and memoir, three days knowing that as festival readers ourselves, we were in the best company. Each year, festival director Ken Hada brings in three featured writers. In 2023, the features included Major Jackson, a poet with national prominence, and Allison Amend, who read from Things That Pass for Love, a stunning collection of short stories. Last but not least was Octavio Quintanilla, one of my favorite poets. A week or so ago, Octavio was selected as Texas Poet Laureate for 2025-26.

At Scissortail, I got to mix with Texas writers I’ve known and admired for years, including Lyman Grant, Brady Peterson, Alan Berecka, Ann Howells, Alan Gann, Audell Shelburne, Sarah Webb, and two former Texas Poets Laureate, karla k morton, and Alan Birkelbach. I heard work by writers I hadn’t known before: Benjamin Myers, Paul Juhasz, Hank Jones, Rilla Askew, Joey Brown, Denise Tolan. . . . The list goes on—one delightful surprise after another.

I returned to Scissortail in 2024 and 2025. This year marked twenty years of the festival. Ken Hada succumbed to subtle pressure and agreed to be one of the festival’s featured writers. He read from Visions for the Night, a new collection published by Turning Plow Press. I’m at about the halfway mark. About these poems, let me quote from the foreword by Paul Bowers:

  Ken Hada is a poet who comfortably rejects clear boundaries, 
  although his work would seem filled with them: light and dark, 
  the four seasons, beginnings and endings, youth and old age. 
  But these are mostly offered as moments of transition, signaled 
  by unexpected sights, sounds, whispers, songs—human or 
  bird produced—that speak out of the coming light or coming 
  darkness.

And that brings me to a further surprise—and a reminder. Small presses! They are alive and well and doing the good work of putting good writing in the hands of readers. Turning Plow Press is one of them. As I have discovered since my first drive to Ada, Turning Plow has published other writers I’ve met at the festival, among them, Paul Austin, Alan Berecka, Julie Chappell, Hank Jones, Paul Juhasz, and Cullen Whisenhut.

Decades ago, I remember hearing that Larry McMurtry owned a T-shirt saying “Minor Regional Writer.” From the first paragraph of The Last Picture Show, McMurtry always seemed something more than either “minor” or “regional.” Today, then, I want to quibble with the word minor. I want to preach the gospel of regional writers. Hence, the subtitle I’m adding to my blog.

Notes:

Visions for the Night is available here ⇒

Check out Turning Plow Press here ⇒