Q: Which writer uses his newspaper job to pay the bills while he spends evenings mastering the craft of fiction writing?
A: The AJC cultural affairs reporter who wrote about archaeologists in the Oakland Cemetery (which would be a really great assignment if you needed fodder for a short story).
A few of the most stirring excerpts:
They bent to their tasks, brand-new tools bright against the red dirt. What would the uprooted trees at Oakland Cemetery reveal?
Fragments of pottery, or maybe a Minié ball that killed a long-ago soldier?
Perhaps remains of the soldier himself?
Oakland lay in the path of the tornado, which rose like a dark wave and crashed on downtown Atlanta. The tempest ripped the head off a stone angel as easily as a child would snatch the bloom off a tulip. It kicked over obelisks as if they were no more than Dixie cups.
The workers folded their tarp and carried it to a waiting pickup truck, their shadows a step behind in the late-morning sun. The truck started and headed toward Potter’s Field. There, a tree — dead, or dying — lay atop bodies. What would it reveal?
Tags: ajc, archeology, mark davis, oakland cemetery
Nice pic.
Hey, it is a nice pic!
Mark Davis in the house!!!
Oh, I step in the house on occasion.