"Rebecca Bailey's novella The Only Road There Is arrives at the 
perfect moment in this national season of gloom and doom. Narrator 
Brenda Marlene Simpkins' spoken language is fresh as a cold 
mountain stream as she tells the story of her road trip from Kentucky 
to 'out west' with her dear old and frustrating mother. I think this book 
establishes Rebecca Bailey high on the list of new-century American 
fiction writers."—Gurney Norman, author of Divine Right's Trip and 
Kinfolks

"The Only Road There Is sparkles with the same rare, creative energy 
that makes Rebecca Bailey a prize-winning short story writer and 
poet."—John Engle, author of Tree People, Modern Odyssey,and 
numerous other poetry collections

"This marvelously witty romp through the postmodern American West 
is a delightful and fresh point of view with a narrative voice that recalls 
the best of Tom Robbins and Jane Smiley without being imitative or 
derivative in the least. The heroine/narrator of this finely wrought story 
of a dysfunctional family that manages to pull it all together when the
going gets . . . well, ridiculous . . . is just plain fun. Never a dull word 
here, just angst revealed in a candid and totally original and utterly 
fun story that creates an appetite for more.  It is a nearly perfect 
novella."—Clay Reynolds, Series Judge

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REBECCA BAILEY is the author of the poetry collections A Wild
Kentucky Garden and Reign of the Girl-King.  Her awards include an 
Al Smith Fellowship in Fiction from the Kentucky Arts Council in 2001 
and a residency at the Montana Artists Refuge in Basin, Montana, in 
2000.  She lives in rural eastern Kentucky with her husband and 
animals. She enjoys hiking, gardening, reading, paper marbling, and 
hand bookbinding. She teaches writing at Morehead State University.