The Ballad of Kentucky Johnson is the song you hear.
Holler & Hard Times is everything humming underneath it.
This is the attic of the holler—a stash of journals, letters, prayers, police notes, barroom gossip, radio scripts, and half-finished songs that never make the polite version of the tale. Some of these folks walk through the main novel. Some never do. But they’re real enough to stir the air, shape the town, and haunt the ridge.
Here you’ll find the backroads of the Ballad Dodecet—the stories that feed Kentucky’s world, bleed into the other Ballads, and keep the hills muttering long after you close the book.
Torn-out pages from Kentucky, Eli, Curtis, and others—raw entries that never made it into polite conversation, where faith, fear, and fury sit down at the same table.
In-world letters from a storytelling grandfather who sees more than he lets on—part comfort, part warning, part prophecy. These letters will one day stand as their own book, but they live here first.
Hand-scrawled notes, rants, and survival tips from a man who’s been watching the world tilt sideways for a long time. Funny, unsettling, and sometimes uncomfortably right. Pete’s got books of his own coming—but his roots are here.
Early show outlines, promo copy, DJ notes, and on-air prayers from WLMP—“We Love Mountain Praise.” How the station rose out of static and started stitching song, sermon, and story into one long broadcast.
Newspaper snippets, church bulletins, police reports, and hand-typed notes from folks trying to make sense of what’s happening in Rattlesnake Ridge, Rooster Run, and the darker woods beyond.
Cameos, side remarks, and quiet Easter eggs pointing to Callum James Roan, Patrick O’Fearghal, Samuel Pilcher, Dylan Llewellyn, and Victor Robert Farrell. The universe is already connected—even if the characters don’t know it yet.