Conversations with James Still (1989)
55 minute video
These conversations with writer James Still were recorded in two sessions. The first was in August of 1984, when I was at the Hindman Settlement School in Hindman, Kentucky working on I Have a Place: The Poetry of Jim Wayne Miller. Originally I had in mind using interview footage with James Still in that program, but decided instead to go to work on what became James Still: Man on Troublesome Creek, first broadcast on Kentucky Educational Television and then distributed nationally via the PBS system in 1989. The interviews in this recording dated October, 1987, were conducted specifically for that documentary, but were not included. Thus what I have provided in Conversations with James Still is interview footage – outtakes -- gathered for two different programs, but unused for various reasons. I believe it is nevertheless footage that may be of value to those interested in the life and work of James Still, the time that he lived in, and his literary legacy derived from the people of the mountain South.