Joe Mackall – författare

The old neighborhood was the place Joe Mackall left. It was a place where everyone's parents worked at the factory at the dead end of the street, where the Catholic church and school operated like a religious city hall, and where a boy like Joe grew up vowing to get out as soon as he could and to shed his blue-collar beginnings and failed, flawed religion. When the mysterious death of a childhood friend draws him back to the last street before Cleveland, however, he discovers that there is more to "old haunts" than mere words—and more to severing one's roots than just getting away. The Last Street Before Cleveland chronicles Mackall's descent into his past: the story of how, looking for answers about his lost friend, he stumbles on larger questions about himself. With clear-eyed candor, Mackall describes the resurfacing of dormant demons, the opening of the old chasms of depression and addiction, and the discovery, at rock bottom, of a flickering faith that casts a surprising light over everything that has come before. Mackall's is, finally, a story about life—lived and lost, given and earned.

Joe Mackall has lived surrounded by the Swartzentruber Amish community of Ashland County, Ohio, for over sixteen years. They are the most traditional and insular of all the Amish sects: the Swartzentrubers live without gas, electricity, or indoor plumbing; without lights on their buggies or cushioned chairs in their homes; and without rumspringa, the recently popularized "running-around time" that some Amish sects allow their sixteen-year-olds.Over the years, Mackall has developed a steady relationship with the Shetler family (Samuel and Mary, their nine children, and their extended family). Plain Secrets tells the Shetlers'' story over these years, using their lives to paint a portrait of Swartzentruber Amish life and mores. During this time, Samuel''s nephew Jonas finally rejects the strictures of the Amish way of life for good, after two failed attempts to leave, and his bright young daughter reaches the end of school for Amish children: the eighth grade. But Plain Secrets is also the story of the unusual friendship between Samuel and Joe. Samuel is quietly bemused—and, one suspects, secretly delighted—at Joe''s ignorance of crops and planting, carpentry and cattle. He knows Joe is planning to write a book about the family, and yet he allows him a glimpse of the tensions inside this intensely private community. These and other stories from the life of the family reveal the larger questions posed by the Amish way of life. If the continued existence of the Amish in the midst of modern society asks us to consider the appeal of traditional, highly restrictive, and gendered religious communities, it also asks how we romanticize or condemn these communities—and why. Mackall''s attempt to parse these questions—to write as honestly as possible about what he has seen of Amish life—tests his relationship with Samuel and reveals the limits of a friendship between "English" and Amish.

Nationally recognized River Teeth: A Journal of Nonfiction Narrative has published a host of new and significant voices in creative nonfiction - including essays, memoir, and literary journalism - since 1999. To celebrate twenty years of introducing talented new writers to readers and publishing great nonfiction, the founding editors, Joe Mackall and Daniel W. Lehman, have selected their all-time favorite essays published in River Teeth in this stunning collection. Essays include up-and-coming authors as well as luminaries such as Ann Hood, Lee Martin, Chris Offutt, Angela Morales, Brenda Miller, Judith Kitchen, Ted Kooser, and Andrew Dubus III. River Teeth: Twenty Years of Creative Nonfiction further includes a thoughtful foreword by Robert Atwan that illuminates the importance, breadth, and reach of the journal and shows the diversity of nonfiction writing available in the twenty-first century. A trailblazing publication since its inception, River Teeth continues to share the important work of contemporary writers and will thrive for years to come.