My friend Paul Vanderbeck died today.

In October 2016, I drove for two days from my home in Tennessee to Cambridge, MA for a thirty minute interview with Dr. Noam Chomsky for my 2020 film One Night in January: Counting the Cost of Homelessness.

AWOL is a poem by Michele Proffitt.

Of alll the holidays, my son Isah loved the Fourth of July the most. And why not? He was born on July 2nd.

The arrivals and departures of college presidents has been an especially hot topic for a few years now. The controversial departure of two Ivy League presidents in recent months has thrown an even brighter spotlight on college presidents and their tenuous positions.

In 2009, our friend Woody Hartman asked me to put Maybelle Carter’s solo version of “Will you miss me when I’m gone?” on a CD for him in honor of his late father.

My friend Terry Wild met Jean in Lexington, Kentucky. For me, their story is a confirmation that Everything Is Already Perfect.

In 1951, my mother Betty met Mack Newton Jr. A year later, they were married in Chestertown, Maryland by a justice of the peace. I was eight-years-old.

“The right shot at the right moment does not come because you do not let go of yourself. You do not wait for fulfillment, but brace yourself for failure.”

I met the author James Conaway in 1964. At the time I was taking a night class in creative writing at San Francisco State College and working days as a shipping and receiving clerk.

In the summer of 1970, I wrote a letter to Philip Wylie, the author of Generation of Vipers. I first read the book in college, nearly two decades after it was published in 1942, but its vitriol informed my own growing sense of rebellion against the way things were.

On March 10, Create Appalachia will open a new exhibit, The Masked Man, featuring the photography of Glade Spring Virginia photographer Mike Miller. The show will be free and open to the public.

Photographer Mike Miller continues exploring his masked psyche with a new series of photographs

“I can’t begin to write about homelessness when I have never been homeless. What I can write about are the emotions and the feelings we have in common.”

I feel desperate. What do I do now? I don’t know how to do this. I was barely capable of living my previous life with its comforting routines and other ways of assuring me that I was ok.

Just before midnight on November 18, 2016, Howard Allen, our unofficial guide to Nashville’s homeless community, takes us to a dark and secluded park.

Mike Miller continues his journey behind the mask with a new series of photographs that reveal a stark isolation.

Mike Miller’s Masked Man series is an otherworldly exploration of self.

Seed of Doubt, my novel in progress, was inspired by a true crime that I researched for more than a year with the intention of writing an article for a Philadelphia Inquirer series.

Lately, I’ve been knocking on wood a lot whenever I get careless and talk about the future—and not the far future. I’m worried about jinxing the very next second after this one.