Every town has stories beneath its streets.
Some are buried beneath abandoned mines.
Others beneath baseball fields, family tables, and memories that refuse to disappear.
Bespoke is where I share those stories.
Featured Book
Seven Hills
A novel by Brent Taylor
In the fictional mining town of Jasper, Oklahoma, three childhood friends come of age beneath the shadow of the Seven Hills—towering remnants of a mining boom that brought prosperity to their community while leaving scars that will outlast them all.
Grace Ryan, Percy Walker, and Clay Boyd share a childhood shaped by baseball, friendship, faith, and the rhythms of small-town life. But as they grow older, Jasper begins to change. The mines that once sustained the town have left behind poisoned streams, buried dangers, and questions few people are willing to ask.
When Grace returns home from college, she sees Jasper differently. Her hometown seems to be changing. Percy dreams of becoming a writer and searches for a life beyond Jasper. Clay is deeply faithful to his home and family.
As their paths diverge, each must decide what loyalty means to a hometown that has given them both belonging and loss.
Seven Hills is a story of friendship, memory, courage, and the complicated love we carry for the places that made us.
Books for Sale
Seven Hills will be Available to purchase October 2026
Stories
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When my son was small enough to sit on my lap we read bedtime stories next to his window looking out at an ancient oak tree. Beyond the oak to the west, there was a row of houses which backed up to Silver Lake Road, and then a flood plain and timber where the Caney…
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For 38 years, Karen has drawn floppy-eared dog cartoons on restaurant tablecloths worldwide. She drew this one at Nautile in Ft Collins celebrating birthdays of Liz and Brandon and our grandson Romeos birth and that time when i married a Jersey Girl in 1985. I know a place where the dancing is free Now baby…
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My daughter often sang along with television commercials when she was very young. She didn’t always get the words right. When the Chevy Silverado commercial came on, she sang, “Mike the Rock, ” a version I’ve come to prefer with apologies to Bob Seger. On a recent Sunday afternoon, we went to our lyrically challenged…
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I came across a short piece written by my good friend Kate Cutts. I hope you will read it. It made me think back to a line from the musical Wicked and the song, For Good. There are moments in my life when someone noticed something good in me. It might be an act of…
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I grew up in a world of rote learning. For instance, I once knew all the abbreviations for the states before someone got wise and decided you only need two letters for each state. Kansas was rendered as Kans. which if you are scoring at home, saves you two letters but costs you a period.…
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Just finished another podcast of Mornings with Charlie Ann. We discussed concrete mix trucks, squirrels, pine cones, Tesla vs Edison, and why there are very few married pickleball partners. Macon, Georgia was awesome and the pickleball venue next to Mercer university had 26 brand new courts. Karen Mason Taylor carried us to victory in our…
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I’m not such an unaware narcissist that I believe that I’m the only one Roger Hladky blessed in a powerful way. I was one among many. It was long after Roger performed our wedding ceremony, his first to officiate. I was a father, my children grown and flown, an elder at our church back in…
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Look up, child. The moon once pregnant, rises above the trees and changes to a fertile crescent. Days go by, frost greets dawn. Leaves turn, yellow red brown, chastened from branches, by a blue wind. See the swirl of autumn, that rains brilliant leaves, falling, hugging the earth, old friends. The days shine, a sparkling…
