The first time I drove through eastern Arkansas, I thought it was the bleakest place I’d ever been: bone-brown fields and corrugated towns under flat, gray skies. Years later, living in nearby Memphis, I was debilitated by a chronic illness, which reduced my world to the confines of my couch. In this forced stillness, I rediscovered my love for photography, an art I'd neglected during a decade of writing fiction. Eventually, by finding the right treatment, I emerged from illness, my perspective on life profoundly altered. Ironically, the landscapes of eastern Arkansas has become my favorite photography subject. I feel now what I didn’t when I first drove through this place: an appreciation for the forgotten, for the neglected, for the things that become extraordinary when you've faced their loss.
