"James Still" was an American poet, novelist and folklorist. He lived most of his life in a log house along the Dead Mare Branch of Little Carr Creek, Knott County, Kentucky. He was best known for the novel River of Earth, which depicted the struggles of coal mining in eastern Kentucky.

More James Still on Wikipedia.

From the first paragraph, I was hooked. I really felt taken by his voice and the way he was writing about the Midwest, in particular.

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But in all that, I had not done an adaptation of classic Indiana fiction.

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It was pretty fast for me, actually. I worked on it in very concentrated ways. . . .

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That really took the wind out of our sails.

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When I took this program over, I told these parents that I was going to take care of those young men like they are my own, ... If that was my son, that's what I would have done.

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