What other
writers have said about
YOU CAN GO
ANYWHERE
From the Crossroads of the World
by
Georgia Green Stamper
“Georgia Green
Stamper is a wonderfully original writer. She is to
Kentucky what Bailey White is to Georgia – unique in every
way. Humorous, perceptive, and poignant, her essays are
perfectly crafted gems illuminating those little moments in
life that make it worth living, reminding us to appreciate
the present before it quickly passes away. We are still
smiling and mulling over her insights, long after we have
read the last page.”
Gwyn Hyman Rubio
author of
Icy Sparks,
a New York Times bestseller & Oprah Book Club
Selection, and
The Woodsman's Daughter
"Georgia Green
Stamper's essays do that most important thing that only the
most accomplished writers are sometimes lucky to do:
capture and preserve a place, a time, and its people.
Stamper's eye is sharp, and her pen is doubly so. Here is a
book brimming with poetry and wisdom.."
Silas
House
nationally best-selling author of
Clay’s Quilt, Parchment of Leaves, and The Coal Tattoo
“This is very powerful writing . . . the language, rhythms,
diction are so much of a piece, so much reinforce the
subject matter – a fine (and rare!) synergy.” “Stamper
has very
engaging
stories to tell, and a masterful facility with the nuanced
language needed to tell them.”
- Tony Crunk
author of
Living in the Resurrection,
winner of the 1994 Yale Series of Younger Poets
competition
“The first time
I heard Georgia Stamper read one of her pieces, I knew I
had encountered an authentic voice, rooted in a place and
its history and passionate to tell its stories –
unmistakably itself, but calling forth echoes of other true
and impassioned voices I had read and heard. Most
immediately, Georgia’s fiction and essays made me think of
Wendell Berry’s writing. Like Wendell Berry’s essays and
novels, they were both native ground and portals into the
mysteries of another place and time and the ultimately
unknowable lives that make up our history and culture as
Kentuckians and human beings …
The range of
the brief essays here makes this a solid book, but it is
Georgia’s style – transparent, never calculating or
pretentiously “down home” – that makes it a satisfying
read. Not many writers can move from graceful little
history lectures (in “Mountain Island” and “Peter Durrett”)
through analyses of folk wisdom (in pieces like “Baling
Wire”) to the high hilarity of “The Decades Diet.” And only
a few writers produce pieces like “Mother’s Day” and
“Halloween Soup” which perform the essential essayist’s
task of meditation on where and how our personal experience
intersects with the community and its communal memory.”
Leatha Kendrick
author of
Second Opinion, Science in Your Own
Backyard,
and
Heart Cake;
critic; editor; and creative writing instructor at the
University of Kentucky, The Carnegie Center, and elsewhere
"...in YOU CAN
GO ANYWHERE [Georgia] shares her compassionate insights
into
Owen County souls from the colonial period to the attacks
of September 11. ...
Georgia laughs with them and cries with them. Not
many writers can do both."
For full review see
Sherry's Review.
Sherry Chandler
author of
Dance the Black-eyed Girl
&
My Last Will and Testament Is on the Desk
"It is time for
the carefully---and skillfully-- cultivated words of
Georgia Green Stamper to be harvested. I recently became
acquainted with the Owen County writer when I received her
book, You Can Go Anywhere from the Crossroads of the World,
from Kentucky Monthly to be reviewed for a future issue.
Georgia provides the reader a healthy dose of nostalgic
remembrances---often humorous---of her colorful family and
community, but the stories are not merely empty sentiment.
Many are essay-like, and the former high school teacher
cranks out some real gems of wisdom along the way. I also
heard her do a reading at Joseph-Beth, and she could teach
a clinic on that skill. In fact, Georgia reads regularly on
the NPR radio affiliate, WUKY in Lexington. Be sure to
check out her web site, georgiagreenstamper.com, and get
her book, published by Wind Publications, as fast as you
can! I’m continually amazed at the number of wonderful
writers our state produces. Add GGS to the list!"
Steve Flarity
author of
Kentucky's Everyday Heroes: Ordinary People Doing
Extraordinary Things