Write Team: Kentucky writer, Jesse Stuart, friend and mentor

In 1965, an imminent Kentucky author, Jesse Stuart, came to Ball State University to conduct a day-long seminar for the English department and all of their students. As a member of the English Department, I served as his host.

Stuart was among the best regional writers in America and had captured the beauty, hardships and importance of the people in his home state. When he published “Man with a Bull-Tongue Plow” in 1934, he stunned the literary world with this collection of sonnets and he was both appreciated and respected as a literary figure in America.

I learned in 1971 in preparation for my assignment as Fulbright Professor of English at the University of Liberia that I was to mentor an unpublished but aspiring Liberian writer, Wilton Sankawulo. Realizing that one of the best models for the sort of writing Sankawulo would do in Liberia was the local color perfected by Jesse Stuart. I wrote Stuart, explaining my assignment and asking him if we could spend some time together preparing me for my mentorship.

Kind man that he was, he invited Norma and me to come to his home in Greenup, Kentucky for a day-long visit in preparation for my mentorship.

One pleasant day in early 1971, Norma and I drove from our home in Maryland to his home in Kentucky and arrived in time for a cup of morning coffee and pleasant greetings from our hosts, Naomi and Jesse Stuart.

As our wives became friends throughout the day, Jesse and I became colleagues. He took me to his writing studio, located in a small cabin-like structure, where he pointed to a stack of bound manuscripts and said, “This is my bank account. These are finished manuscripts, which I will publish over the next few years.”

We sat in his study and talked. He explained to me that he had never had aspirations to write about anything but the people and land that lay around him in Kentucky. He had a deep love for the people and an astounding understanding of their deepest hopes, dreams and fears. He saw his task as a writer to memorialize these people and their landscape into a literature that would be appreciated and understood by people across America. He wrote short stories, novels and poetry to fulfill his task and had developed a major literary legacy toward that end.

We broke for lunch at a fine state park restaurant near his home with our wives, and then returned to our conversations.

He took me on a walking tour of his beautiful landscaped property, W-Hollow, and up into the rugged hills surrounding his home, talking all the way. It turned out to be not only a beautiful day, but exactly what I had anticipated.

When I arrived in Liberia, I met with Sankawulo and set up a regular schedule for the year to talk about his writing. I gave him several copies of selected Stuart books, shared the many insights provided by Stuart and from my own experience, and read and critiqued his manuscripts. When Sankawulo died in 2009, he had written and published six books, all focusing on the local color of his native Liberia.

I am delighted to have been a small part of Sankawulo’s success as a writer and very proud of his achievements for his people.

Robert Cotner spent 25 years as an English teacher that include serving as Fulbright lecturer in English at the University of Liberia. He concluded his career as an executive at The Salvation Army and Shriners Children’s Hospital-Chicago. He now lives in Seneca.