Creekbank Stories Curt Iles, Storyteller

Ivory “guarding” the office.   “Sugar and Ivory” From the Curt Iles book,Hearts across the Water It’s odd but I will always think of two dogs when I think of the long night that Hurricane Rita struck Dry Creek Camp.   We had 350 people on our grounds. They had been moved and bedded down in our most solid dorms …

Spring dogwood in bloom Crooked Bayou Swamp Dogwoods under the Pines The following story is from my novel, The Wayfaring Stranger. This passage takes place in March of 1850 western Louisiana. This dogwood story details the growing love affair between the Irishman Joe Moore and the Redbone girl, Eliza Clark. It was over a week before Joe’s next visit. Mid-March …

“Branding Dogs” A case study on a misunderstanding Eddie Anyone who knows me is aware of how much I love dogs. One of my older friends always said, “Don’t trust anyone who doesn’t like dogs.” One of my writing priorities is to include a good dog in every book I write. I don’t just like dogs. I love dogs, especially …

Curt cooking supper at The Old House What I Value Most You can also view this story at www.whativaluemost.com. Simply type in “Curt Iles” to read my story. I make my living as a storyteller. Some stories are written, others I tell. Most of the stories I tell are true. Others, although fictional, are taken from real life. As a …

Mexican Dirt I love stories, because I’m a storyteller. I love all stories, but especially funny stories. Best of all, I like funny stories with a happy message. One of the biggest challenges of storytelling is sharing cross-culturally. Something that a group of Americans would double over in laughter at may leave an African audience or Hondurans scratching their heads …

No retreat, not even for writer’s doubt. Recently a writing friend expressed her doubts about the quality of her writing. Understanding fully what she was going through, I shared the following: As a writer, I’ve been plagued with WRITER’S BLOCK. However, I routinely suffer from WRITERS DOUBT. From reading others, it seems to plague every writer to varying degrees. The …

Rusty Thompson on the highway In the coming weeks, we’ll be blogging our funniest stories. Some will be new and others will be old favorites. The following one, entitled “Rusty” is from my third book, Wind in the Pines. It’s a favorite story of my friend Peggy Benoit. Let us know your favorite funny stories from my books, and we’ll …

Church Thermostats . . . Open Windows Pews. . . Boards, Carpet. . . Dirt Floors I’m still full of stories from Honduras. I fully believe folks in other places can teach us as much, or more, than we have to teach them. An example of this is the church at Zucros de Cana, Honduras. Its congregation is small. Its …

The Beauty of Honduras. One of the best parts of our Honduran trip was becoming friends with many young people. Stephanie, shown reading from my book, Wind in the Pines, was one of our translators. We are working on a translation of my stories/devotions into Spanish. This is the student body at the local school, Instituto Santa Anna. We were …

An Armed Guard on the Coca Cola truck Sometimes I think things in the “Developing World” resemble the old American West. I sketched this picture alongside a Honduran highway. One of the Coca Cola workers had a shotgun slung over his shoulder. He was truly “riding shotgun” like in a western stagecoach. I love a cold coke so I could …

Sunday, Feb. 22, 2009 Santa Ana, Honduras Billy Harper (center) with his pastors “Corazon” My favorite Spanish word A few thoughts on the life and death of Billy Harper My friend Billy Harper arrived back in Louisiana today. When I left him a week ago in Honduras, we agreed to visit in a week. However, his flight into Houston was …

I left my heart at the Tegucigalpha Dump These two pictures are from the city dump outside Honduras’ capital city of Tegucigalpha. Over 300 adults and children live among the dump eking out a living from digging in the trash. Shown above are the crude lean to shacks built by the dump-dwellers. As buzzards circle, people scrounge and fight over …

The Honduran flag’s two blue stripe represent the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. The five blue stars are for the original Central American countries: Honduras, Costa Rico, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Guatemala. Back from Honduras . . . with lots of stories. We had a great week of being in Honduras. As always, the best part was being with the wonderful …

The Door is Open To be invited into an Honduran house is a great honor and is always a favorite part of any trip. The hospitality of folks in other countries is so wonderful. It seems like the door is always open to visitors . The sweet lady, Reina, holding the picture told us, “Our home is humble, but Christ …