Many years ago, a friend of mine and I made a pilgrimage to see the poet Robinson Jeffers at his home in Carmel, California. It was an impressive place, set among the craggy rocks that line the coastline of that small village. His daughter greeted us at the door and told us that her father was unable, or unwilling, to see visitors. We were not terribly disappointed because we knew that he lived a solitary life, and we imagined that he was sitting in his castle tower watching the seabirds over the ocean, perhaps looking for one of the hawks that populated his poetry. There is a line in one of Jeffers’ poems that has stuck with me all these years, a line that my friend Charles Bukowski, also a poet, used as a title for one of his volumes of poetry. The line was “it catches my heart in its hands.” I have been writing about the Ozarks for nearly 30 years. I began writing about those green hills and deep shadowy hollows almost from the time I set foot in that magical country that covers parts of Missouri, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Illinois and Kentucky. My first book about this country was called, MY HEART IS IN THE OZARKS. The Ozarks caught my heart in its hands. There was another story that has haunted me for many years, written by my friend Ray Bradbury. It appeared in his collection, THE MARTIAN CHRONICLES. The title of the story was, DARK THEY WERE, AND GOLDEN-EYED. It dealt with the changes that occurred in earthlings who had migrated to Mars and how the planet affected them without their even knowing it. We went into the Ozarks, but they came into us, as well, and I wanted a section on my website to reflect my feelings for that magical, mystical country. All of my Ozarks books are still in print, but some are difficult to obtain. Here, in this place, though, is a glimpse into my heart. Maybe you will see the feelings I have for those hills that, no matter where I am in this world, feel like home. Jory Sherman By Jory Sherman If I were asked someday to talk about these green hills, what language would I use to describe them? If I were asked to write about the Ozarks and their effect on me, which words would describe those quiet journeys the heart takes on certain summer afternoons when the wind hums in the deep woods like the air resonating in the bass range of a pipe organ? If I were asked to sing a song about the rivers and streams that course this land and these hills, which notes would I use, and which key would I sing in with such soft and shining words that all would know my meaning, from the smallest creature to the most intricate? If I were asked to paint all these places, the shadows in drowsy hollows, the gray deer tiptoeing atop the ridges when all the leaves are turning, the chittering fox squirrels and the grays, as they scuttled through the crackling fallen leaves, the flickering play of golden light as it shimmers in the woods on an autumn afternoon, what colors would I splash on my humble pallet, and which camel’s hair brush would I use for such delicate and elusive strokes to cover my canvas? They fill me, these green hills, and memory percolates up through the thick layers of civilization in my mind as I recall my first glimpse of dogwoods in April, their white blossoms like ermine flowers amid the verdant cedars southwest of Eureka Springs, Arkansas, bright white lights floating on a sea of green along the slopes bordering the winding road. And the soft sanguine presence of the red buds sprinkled in the woods like roses floating on the air, and the yellow butterflies dancing ballets through the trees like little scraps of sunlight sent fluttering to earth from some gilded star far out in space. Those first images of the Ozarks have stayed with me all these years, etched in my mind so deep they can never be erased in the longest lifetime. The hills that first morning arose out of a thick mist like some Brigadoon stage set that appears only once in a span of years, then disappears until another generation spawns. There was something mystical about that mist, because it hid the hills until I passed by and then it wisped into gossamer shawls and scarves that floated away, gradually revealing the muscles of the earth, those rugged cords of hills rising like islands from an ocean of clouds. Mystical, yes, and magical, as if the green spring hills were being born at just that moment, as if they had lain dormant beneath a low sky full of heavy clouds, waiting for that first kiss of sunlight, waiting for me. All the dirt roads lead somewhere, and I have followed many of them since that first morning, a wanderer and an explorer, never expecting anything, but always finding something of great value, whether it be a diamond-strewn creek in sunlight or a midnight river full of dancing stars, or a verdant woodland glade, or the grand bluffs that thread these Ozarks hills like veins of silver and gold deep under a mountain. Those bluffs. So full of magic, bursting with intricate waterfalls after a rain, or frozen sculptures of icy beards in winter, sometimes majestic, sometimes as homely as my face in the shower-steamed mirror. And do we not see something of ourselves in all these wonders along these dusty backroads? Our dreams, our visions, our hopes, our longing, our family, our loved ones, our homes? I do. I see the Osages who once lived and hunted here, and I see those intrepid pioneers who rumbled here in covered wagons from Tennessee early in the 19th century, who flowed into the promised land with empty purses and high hopes and stayed under the spell of these hills and grew into them, even as the hills grew into them. I discovered, long ago, that it’s not the things that last. It’s not the things we see and touch, which endure in reality, but the images of those things that are important to us, that seem to mirror memories in the soul. The myths, both ancient and modern, that underlie each vivid event in our lives and the lives of others. The images are those intangibles that we can summon from some deep place inside us and relive and enjoy again and again, though we be far from home, far from these hills and hollows that we have journeyed through to find our own truths, our own personal mythology. Images. Images in the spiraling violins of a classical masterpiece. Images in the fine painting of a scene long since gone from the world, but existing outside of time, imbued with the earthly vision of the artist and the everlasting vision of the human soul. Images in the poetry we write to describe the indescribable, the very substance of what lies beneath all images, the core, the kernel of truth that is in the immutable face of eternity. We see beneath the craggy bluffs and through the stately sentinels of trees, and beneath the waters that flow in the rivers and streams, in the deer that dance in the meadows, the trout that leaps to catch a nymph or a mayfly, in the lyrical songs the birds sing, in the scissoring language of bees as they make love to flowers, in all that passes by and lingers in our minds like a fragrance beyond description, almost beyond recall. The images mellow with time, like a fine wine with a taste that lingers in the mouth’s buds. And the images of this hallowed land that has borne so many of us up for so long, might be kept safe from harm in some secret place of the heart. They can be referred to like photographs in an album, flicked through, studied, envisioned once again from a new perspective. They can be framed and set upon the walls of the mind as in a gallery or a museum, and some could be placed under special lighting to enhance them, bring them close as if they were magnified. And, some could be kept in a kind of special wallet that you could open and show to others you might meet. Each image could become a kind of talisman, a good luck piece, a lucky charm, that one might recall in moments of despair or hopelessness, or when far from home, suffering from that special sickness that comes from longing for something you once had that is now out of reach. The beauty and the intricacy of the human mind add another dimension to such a talisman that I might give you, a token you can keep in your pocket. As you bring it out and look at it and remember what it meant to me, it can assume those associations you bring to it. So, the images in the talisman eventually become your images, not mine. It is a matter of semantics. In general semantics, we learn more about the power and magic of words, the sheer mystical force of language. For instance, we have the word for “chair.” That is the generic word for any chair and is devoid of description. The word does not distinguish between an easy chair, a high-backed chair, or any other kind of chair. It’s just a word to denote something to sit on and can be of any shape or size, made of any material. Semantics shows how we load up a generic term like “chair” with emotional content. If we define the object as “grandpa’s chair,” then this adds more meaning to the generic term. Thinking of grandpa’s chair dredges up certain memories, memories of him sitting there. We can add further content to the symbol of grandpa’s chair if we say that “this is grandpa’s chair, the chair he died in.” Then, the symbol of the chair becomes very powerful indeed, for it now carries an even more special meaning. And, so it is with the image of a sunset or a sunrise, or any of the images pertaining to these Ozarks. You can add your own dimensions and emotional content to any image. The talisman in your pocket takes on meaning just for you each time you call upon its power to spark and summon your own memories from a series of generic images. And, how do you revive those images of mystical hills and deep hollows, and sunlit meadows and shining streams and frozen bluffs and songbirds in trees, and the whippoorwill’s plaintive cry as dusk cloaks the land with long soft shadows just before the night takes it all away. Perhaps there is a way. Perhaps with words written on a page that someone might read when all that existed, all that was of those times and that place are gone, truly gone. Perhaps the words are the way to make things that are long dead live again, in the mind, in memory, in the heart. And, so these words, these ephemeral images so fleeting and yet so vivid once, stand as a kind of hymn to the Ozarks. That others might see the paintings, hear the songs being sung, listen to the symphonic music of nature, and have a personal talisman to touch and hold and keep and smell and taste long after I am gone from these hills and have put down my notebook and gone to sleep. If only the words remain, that is enough. They hold the images for all earthly time. Enough? The words, ultimately, are everything, and are all that may be left to us and generations yet to come. * Published in The Storyteller magazine, Sept.2005. Ozark Links... Ozark Writers League Ozarks Monthly magazine

Stories of mystery, intrigue and suspense by our honor roll of Ozark writers: Jory Sherman, Dusty Richards, Ellen Gray Massey, Velda Brotherton, Radine Trees Nehring, Larry Wood, Barrie Bumgarner, Kay Hively, Vicki Cox, Jane Hale, Carolyn Gray Thornton and many more. "There are stories, many of them sad, but the virtue of this slim volume is in its treasures of language, word pictures that linger past the stories themselves. Here's one, in the opening to "Comes the Hunter": He looked down into morning. Looked through a tunnel of trees to see it. Heard it come. Saw it dawn over the bluffs like the soft fire in the complexions of peaches, listened to it sing in the quivering throats of birds, listened to it sigh like a woman loved, like a wind rising from the creek... This is the sort of book that may stay on a shelf, to be pulled down again and again on those days when you're feeling blue, or when you're somewhere else and need to smell and feel the Ozarks one more time."  -- Lee Kirk, Ozarks Monthly magazine. Echoes of the Ozarks, Volume 1, features the varied talents of the members of the Ozarks Writers League. The Ozarks-oriented short stories, essays and poetry cover a wide variety of subjects: spook lights, the memories that a flower's scent can bring, a young boy making a difficult choice during the Civil War, another young boy who finds his vocation through a chance encounter with a famous writer - and the list goes on. We hope you enjoy the stories selected for our first volume. All proceeds from the sale of this book go to OWL - the Ozarks Writers League. The Vigilante First in a new series from Berkley, The Vigilante tells the story of Lew Zane who lives in Osage, Arkansas. When his parents are robbed and brutally murdered, Lew goes to the law. But, the killers are the sons of the most prominent citizens in Alpena, Arkansas and the law turns its back on Zane. Vowing to avenge his parents' killers, Lew sets out to bring the two killers to justice, but he is thwarted by the courts, the lawmen, and the entire system. So, he must take matters into his own hands and seek justice on his own terms--at the point of a gun. Below are more books and anthologies Jory has written which showcase his love of the Ozarks. Click on the individual covers to see book details and ordering information.