Her bio states: "Hadley Fuller, 16, is a sophomore at Lafayette High School in Lafayette, Louisiana. She plays the violin, loves nature, and loves to write." But Hadley's also my niece, and she has a great eye and ear. And an even bigger heart.
 
"As the meadows roll by my window, the cows stroll lazily by the lake that reflects the glistening moon and the luminescent stars. We drive on, my darling and I, in our deep blue beetle bug. I look ahead, and the canopy of trees darkens the road, shadowing every twist and turn that I know it must be hiding. As it envelopes us, I smell a skunk. My darling comments about how horrendous it is, and I quietly smile to myself. I’m lost in a memory from years ago."
 
Read "The Smell of Night" by Hadley Fuller.

"No, the story's not interesting. I simply applied for it and got it. I never was a good reporter."

One Sunday afternoon in October 2007, I got a call on my cell phone from an unfamiliar number. It was the 615 area code, so I knew it was from someone around Nashville. On the other end was Will D. Campbell. He's friends with my Uncle Steve, and I had sent him a copy of an article I had written about a rally in Jena, Louisiana. It was an unexpected conversation and a great one. We talked for about an hour, and he told me that I needed to put together a book. (And I'm still working on it.) But aside from going to college in Pineville and standing beside Elizabeth Eckford while she tried to go to school at Little Rock Central High School in 1957, here's another reason I respect and admire Brother Will.

Here's where he was on April 4, 1968, the day Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated.

In my cubicle at The Independent Weekly there's a piece of paper I tacked up on my first day on the job. It's from Rick Bragg's All Over But the Shoutin'. "I didn’t get into this business to change the world; I just wanted to tell stories. But now and then, you can make people care, make people notice that something ain't quite right, and nudge them gently, with the words, to get off their ass and fix it."
 
For the past five years, I've worn many different hats at the paper. I was hired as the senior writer, later became the managing editor and have always been the Lead Intra-Office Web Geek. But now, I'm getting back to my first love -  writing.
 
Today is my last day as The Independent's managing editor. Starting on Monday, I'll be a contributing writer for the paper. It's going to allow me to pursue other endeavors, while continuing to write about this part of the planet that I love.
 
I'm going to be in the office less and writing for the paper more. We're going to try it out for a couple of months and see how it works.
 
It all really just boils down to me getting back to telling stories.

As usual, my once-every-three-years update to this site has taken far longer than I had expected or hoped. There's still several tweaks I want to make to it, but for the most part the guts of the new site are in place. Now I can start fooling around with it a little bit more and figure out how to add more useful widgets, like dancing alligators playing accordion and frisky raccoons playing the fiddle.