Wes Blake in conversation with Jeff Parker

After being sentenced to a minimum-security Pr*son in eastern Kentucky, former southern revival preacher and confidence man, Frank Russet, escapes. Taking only a cat named Buffalo and a desire to outrun his former life, he journeys to the fringes of society. As he struggles to survive, Frank confronts his past, seeking redemption amidst the wilderness. As Frank traverses the shadowy edges of society, he encounters remnants of his former self, forcing him to confront his deepest regrets and desires. Blake’s haunting prose captures the essence of a man on the brink of transformation, urging readers to ponder the thin line between redemption and damnation.

Wes Blake’s fiction and essays have appeared in Louisiana Literature Journal, Blood & Bourbon, Book of Matches, Jelly Bucket, White Wall Review, and elsewhere. His novella, Pineville Trace, won the Etchings Press Book Prize at the University of Indianapolis. Lee Martin, author of the Pulitzer Prize Finalist, The Bright Forever, described him as "a writer to watch." His novel, Antenna, was a semifinalist for the UNO Press Lab Prize. He holds an MFA from the Bluegrass Writers Studio. He lives in Kentucky.

Jeff Parker's most recent work, a novella about an ahistorical meeting between Edgar Allan Poe and Nikolai Gogol, is forthcoming in Proper Imposters: Four Novellas in 2025. He is the author of several books including Where Bears Roam the Streets: A Russian Journal, the novel Ovenman, and the short story collection The Taste of Penny. His many collaborative books and anthologies include: Clean Rooms, Low Rates; Erratic Fire, Erratic Passion: The Poetry of Sportstalk; A Manner of Being: Writers on their Mentors; Rasskazy: New Fiction from a New Russia; Amerika: Russian Writers View the United States; and The Back of the Line. His short fiction and nonfiction have appeared in American Short Fiction, McSweeney's, Ploughshares, Tin House, and others. He teaches prose in the MFA Program at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and he is the Co-Founder and Director of the DISQUIET International Literary Program in Lisbon, Portugal.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Odyssey Bookshop, 9 College Street, South Hadley, United States