James Braziel

James Braziel grew up in South Georgia on his father's farm. They had cattle, peanut and melon crops, and pines for cutting for pulpwood. Days were for working, nights for walking the dirt road that split the land. In winter, the sky. His writing comes from the humid air, the sand-grit of that place.James' collection of stories, This Ditch-Walking Love, winner of the Tartt First Fiction Prize, is set in the Murphrees Valley section of the Cumberland Plateau where he now lives, where ridges lift...See more

James Braziel grew up in South Georgia on his father's farm. They had cattle, peanut and melon crops, and pines for cutting for pulpwood. Days were for working, nights for walking the dirt road that split the land. In winter, the sky. His writing comes from the humid air, the sand-grit of that place.James' collection of stories, This Ditch-Walking Love, winner of the Tartt First Fiction Prize, is set in the Murphrees Valley section of the Cumberland Plateau where he now lives, where ridges lift above what creeks and small rivers have made. Because the characters in these stories don't have enough money to carry them, they rely on a network of plateau fields, creeks, woods, and clay roads. It might be enough, a field row in August for walking and gathering tomatoes and okra up, or a bluff for jumping off of into the Locust Fork River, or a drive out to Jick's Chevrolet just to see his hellfire cars. These are the places everyone goes to, looking for what they can't make full on their own. See less