Beulah Land

O Beulah Land, the second volume of The Beulah Quintet—Mary Lee Settle's unforgettable generational saga about the roots of American culture, class, and identity and the meaning of freedom—is a land-hungry story. It follows the odyssey of Johnny Church's descendants as they leave England in search of freedom and land. One of those descendants, Jonathan Lacey, settles in the backcountry of Virginia, where he battles both Native Americans and white frontier bandits and builds the beginning of a flourishing estate named Beulah. The novel closes shortly before the commencement of the Revolutionary War, with Lacey elected to the House of Burgesses and his family line firmly established in what is to become the state of West Virginia.

Renowned choral conductor and educator Andr J. Thomas has crafted a book that the conductor of any choral ensemble-be it church, high school, university, or professional-will want close at hand when preparing to program any concert spiritual. Understanding the Spiritual, the first of the book's two sections, includes an exploration of the beginnings of the spiritual, its role in society and its transition into art music. Issues of interpretation-text, diction, rhythm and tempo-are addressed in the second section, Performing the Spiritual. In addition to interviews with noted conductors Dr. Anton Armstrong and Prof. Judith Willoughby as to matters of performance and selection, the centerpiece of this section is Dr. Thomas's personal reflections on several spiritual arrangements, including his rehearsal techniques (with specific examples and measure-number references to the included scores), as well as an insightful look into his decisions of interpretation.

From the Dakotas to Key West, in "Beulah Land's" 13 stories, lush country settings are juxtaposed against taut urban landscapes as every character speaks out with his or her own unique voice.

Though Sweet Beulah Land is entirely fiction, the characters and events are true to life of rural eastern North Carolina, circa 1900. Beulah was a small village where folks married, had babies, worked hard and enjoyed a bit of fun here and there. From Jeb and Sarah Jane Gresham's farm to the country store of Nate and Laney Gresham, the stories of the citizenry of Beulah are deeply intertwined in a homespun tale of heartache, hope, and humor. Murder, mystery, love, adversity and faith-Sweet Beulah Land has it all. For the reader whose roots grow deep in the rich soil of eastern North Carolina, each page is filled with precious memories of a bygone day. For those who hail from other regions of America the Beautiful, the book offers an open door to visit a unique people who become vibrantly alive in this delightful tale of trial and triumph! Wife, mother, grandmother, business woman, teacher and speaker, Marilyn Denny Thomas began her career as a published author by writing inspirational short stories in the late eighties. She made her debut as a novelist in 2005 with The Gentile and the Jew: A Divine Romance, the prequel to her second novel, Going Home: A Divine Journey published in 2007. Sweet Beulah Land is her third book. Marilyn lives with her husband, Ricky, in Southeastern North Carolina. They have two daughters, one fine son-in-law and six precious grandchildren. www.marilyndennythomas.com

This book, first published in 1980, describes and analyses the revolutionary years that saw the birth of the first modern Welsh nation and the American Republic. In the last days of the eighteenth century, as the Atlantic world responded to the challenge of the American and French revolutions, the novel industrial capitalism of England planted itself in the Welsh south and east, and disrupted traditional rural community to west and north. Wales, a marginal and poverty-stricken country, was propelled into modernisation, cultural revival, a breach with the Establishment, a millenarian mitigation and its first politics.

“A haunting, engrossing portrait of two families – one white, one Black – whose lives are woven together and then shattered” (The Washington Post) by the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre Oil-boom opulence, fear, hate, and lynchings are the backdrop for this riveting novel about one of the worst incidents of violence in American history. Althea Whiteside, an oil-wildcatter’s high-strung white wife, and her enigmatic Black maid, Graceful, share a complex connection during the tense days of the Oklahoma oil rush. Their juxtaposing stories – and those of others close to them – unfold as tensions mount to a violent climax in the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921, during which whites burned the city’s prosperous Black neighborhood to the ground. The massacre becomes the crucible that melds and tests each of the character in this masterful exploration of the American race story and the ties that bind us irrevocably to one another.

Southern Gospel standard, masterfully arranged by Camp Kirkland.