Alison Stine's first novel Supervision will be published by HarperVoyager in April 2015. She is also the author of three books of poetry. Her essays have appeared or are forthcoming in Virginia Quarterly Review, The Awl, The Toast, and Jezebel. She lives in the Appalachian foothills.
This is Alison Stine's first piece for The Butter. Her previous work for The Toast can be found here. A few years ago my friend Matt Miller started making alcohol. Miller is from Bellville, Ohio, a small farming community bordered by the green hills of Amish country. Miller’s parents own a farm. He grew up amid the fields and barns. Once a friend and I called him and he was knee-deep in raspberries.
She walks down the alley. Her hand’s in her bag, fingers gripped around her brush. She finds the wall. Kneels, unrolls her handmade poster. Quick swipe of paste on the paper, another on the wall. The poster goes up, then she uses her bare hands to smooth the surface, fingers pressing the paper into cracks. Car lights splash. She turns her face away. Another quick layer of paste once the car is gone,
