A History of Survival in the Hardscrabble Ozarks: Use it up, Wear it out, make it do, or do without

Stories, wild tales, a few songs and serious discussion of the joys and travails of Ozarks life, covering who we are, how we got here and what the journey into these hard hills has made of us, from frontier times to the present. Navigating this ancient, tortured geography has affected how the Ozarker has viewed and used language, changed habits, formed customs, created a unique mythology, influenced demographics and made our heritage one from which we can glean many lessons. Topics may include the Ozarks Karkaghne, the black panther and the lazy hillbilly.

The Making of Winter’s Bone, An Authentic Depiction of the Underbelly of Ozarks Life

How a tiny Independent production company consisting mainly of two city girls who, before they encountered the galleys of Daniel Woodrell’s dark novel had never lived in the country nor heard of a place called The Ozarks. Armed with a tiny budget of $2 million (for a film to be called independent they only have to prove they spent less that $50 million) how did they capture and distill an absolutely authentic version of the real hardscrabble Ozarks, and with it, grab top Sundance honors, umpteen festival wins and four Oscar nominations. First o, they went to the general area where the story was set, found folks living the way the novel described, rented those people’s homes and bought the clothes out of their closets. They hired local amateurs for all but the leads, and they hired me to produce authentic Ozarks music. The rest is history, and a pretty entertaining story. I describe their ingenious route to accurately portraying the land of my roots.