Little Worlds

 

Making molasses at Eldon Henderson’s House, Big Pine, 1978.

 

We volunteer to help our new neighbors make sorghum syrup and spend a long day cutting cane with tobacco knives, stripping the fodder and seed heads from the stalk, and then grinding the stalks through a mill that is powered by a horse. The thin, greenish juice is poured into a long, shallow pan and cooked for hours, changing the liquid into a thick amber syrup. The process goes on into the night. We meet new people—two of them turn out to be Laura’s relatives. Her cousin Nina suggests we take a piece of the ground stalk, dip it in the cook- ing syrup, and suck it dry. That overpowering sweetness, getting to know new people, and a photograph I make, are the best parts of the day.
- from Little Worlds

Little Worlds Fundraiser
https://www.robamberg.com/blog/2023/8/12/little-worlds-the-book

 

Little Worlds

 

Moonflowers, PawPaw.

 

Our nights are dark and quiet, except for the pair of screech owls calling from either end of the holler or coyotes on top of the mountain yearning for goat. The sky’s alive with stars, and when the moon is full the forest dances with shadows and shapes the daylight doesn’t know. Sometimes, when the baby is asleep, Leslie and I lie in the yard wrapped in a blanket, smoking and sipping, waiting for comets, cuddling in the comfort of dusky light.
-
from Little Worlds

LITTLE WORLDS FUNDRAISER

https://www.robamberg.com/blog/2023/8/12/little-worlds-the-book

Little Worlds, The Book - Fundraiser

 
 

The truck stopped and the stillness woke the boy. They'd been driving all night, one of many dark-of-the-moon trips over the last few weeks, avoiding people, stealing fuel when they could find it to steal, sleeping during the day after hiding the truck, a pistol tucked in the floorboard.

"Where are we, Papa?" Wright asked.

Frank said nothing. He was weary from the road and wary of what they might find. Had he decided right? Would they be safe in this surreal and desolate landscape? Could they survive here? He'd seen outlines of collapsing houses and barns as he drove but no signs of life--no lights, no smoke, nothing stirring. He wondered, Are we the only ones?

"We can't drive any farther," he said to the boy. "The road is blocked, and it looks like the bridge is caved in. I'll tell you about this place as we walk.”

Thus begins Little Worlds, Rob Amberg's third volume in a trilogy of books from Madison County, in the mountains of western North Carolina. 

The first two books of the trilogy - Sodom Laurel Album and The New Road - document through photographs, oral history and narrative writing a traditional agrarian lifestyle and community and its evolution brought on by the construction of a new superhighway, improved access to the outside world, and a changing demographic. 

Little Worlds continues this story of change in Madison County but with a new twist. In many ways it is a traditional documentary photography book that utilizes photographs and journal entries to tell a factual story about aspects of life in Madison County over the last fifty years. But it’s the inclusion of speculative fiction, an imaginative look to a dystopian universe fifty years in the future through eyes from the past that brings the book its innovative energy. 

Writers and photographers shy away from mixing documentary and fiction and Little Worlds is clearly a hybrid. It began as a long-running bedtime story I was telling my children and has grown into a unique volume that includes over 150 color and black/white photographs intertwined with a 62,000 word novel. The first edition will be 1,000 copies.

Because of the unique nature of this book, I am choosing to self-publish. It has been edited by noted editor Diana Stoll and designed by Bonnie Campbell, former lead designer at the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University. Expected publication date is spring, 2024.

I am now fundraising for the book and this is the time to be an early supporter of Little Worlds. Rewards are available for different levels of support ranging from: a signed copy of Little Worlds, postcards, individual photographs, limited edition prints and three portfolios of images from the book.

Thank you for your consideration of this long-awaited project. I hope you’ll join me and Frank and Wright on our journey to Little Worlds.


Rewards


Tier 1

A signed copy of the book Little Worlds.
$65, tax and shipping included

 
 
 

Tier 2

A signed copy of the book Little Worlds and
five postcards from the book.
$91, tax and shipping included

 
 

Tier 3

A signed copy of Little Worlds, five postcards from the book and
one signed 8.5” x 11” archival pigment, open edition print chosen from these pages.
$145, tax and shipping included

 

For example, chose this or any single image from these rewards for your support of Little Worlds.

 

Tier 4

Signed copy of Little Worlds, five postcards from the book,
and one signed 13” x 19” limited edition print, chosen from the book,
printed on Hahnemuhle bamboo paper, presented in a slipcase. Edition of 10.
Donor will have their name in the book if ordered before 1/15/24.
$750, tax and shipping included

 

For example, chose this or any single image from these rewards for your support of Little Worlds.

 
 

Tier 5

Signed copy of Little Worlds, five postcards from the book, and
one 7-print portfolio titled Portraits from Little Worlds. The images are
printed on 8.5” x 11” Hahnemuhle bamboo paper, presented in a slipcase.
Edition of 10. Donor will have their name in the book if ordered before 1/15/24.
$2,625, tax and shipping included

 
 

Tier 6

Signed copy of Little Worlds, five postcards from the book, and
One 7-print portfolio titled Land from Little Worlds. The color images are
printed on 13” x 19” Hahnemuhle bamboo paper, presented in a slipcase.
Edition of 10. Donor will have their name in the book if ordered before 1/15/24.
$3,850, tax and shipping included

 

Tier 7

Signed copy of Little Worlds, five postcards from the book, and
one 7-print portfolio titled Life from Little Worlds. The b/w images are
printed on 13” x 19” Hahnemuhle bamboo paper, presented in a slipcase.
Edition of 10. Donor will have their name in the book if ordered before 1/15/24.
$3,850, tax and shipping included

 
 

Thank you for your support. - Rob