Author, Father Loves Monticello

“I love living in Monticello. My wife is from here. She visited me when I was living and in Albany, N.Y.” That’s all it took. That visit, in 2014, caused him to pack up and follow his now wife, Jenna, back to Jasper County to her home on her family’s farm.

He is James Murdock: husband to Jenna Brock Murdock, father to three year old Tallulah Murdock, teacher of Language Arts to eighth grade students at Putnam County Middle School in Eatonton, and writer. He has published his first book of poems and essays, Think, Dear Daughter, a project eight years in the making.

“I love the farm,” he told me. “I could write a whole book about the farm.”

James, his wife Jenna and daughter Lula, his father-in-law Charles and Jenna’s grandmother, make up four generations who live on his wife’s family land in Jasper County.

“It’s amazing and I’m grateful all the time to be able to introduce our daughter to the natural world and watch her discover through playing on the farm. She wants to look at everything, pick up and smell everything,” he added. His father-in-law still farms.

James and Jenna garden in the flower beds, using a permaculture design.

The path to Monticello wasn’t straight. It was more like driving around a round about, taking each turn off the circle until he landed back at the you are here spot on the map that marks the Brock family farm. “I grew up in a South Georgia Christian home with my mom. There are some very beautiful things about growing up like that and some things I rejected, ” he shared.

His parents divorced when he was young so his time was also spent with his Dad in the Forest Park area. When James was 12 his father, a forester and soil scientist, gave him a copy of the book Walden. He played football in high school. His Dad encouraged education over football, telling him football would come and go, but his education would remain with him forever.

College took him to North Georgia. He laughed softly, sharing that he totally immersed himself into college life, even joining a fraternity while in college in Dahlonega. He finds it hard to believe sometimes when he looks at his life today. He still loves football, having assisted as a coach last year at Putnam Middle School. Fraternity life, not so much. “It wasn’t a fit,” he said.

“I thought I’d go to law school and study environmental law,” he mused. Instead he has an undergraduate degree in history and philosophy. After college, it was a job with the New York state parks to help with the migratory butterflies study that took him to New York. He loved it. But, he loved Jenna more and made the return to Georgia.

Upon coming home to Georgia, he found himself working as an Environmental Educator at the Charlie Elliot Wildlife Center (a much underutilized resource by the public he says) for seven years. As a program coordinator, he scheduled field trips for young folks and taught outdoors’ ecology classes. He fell in love with being an educator.

He didn’t know he would teach. He loved the experience of introducing young people to the outdoors and environmental science at Charlie Elliot so much that he pursued a teaching job. “Teaching,” he says “allows me share my love of nature with kids,” believing that teaching allows him to open windows and door to the outdoors for kids.

This year is his first year as a Language Arts teacher. The first two years he taught biology. He appreciates and respects the Putnam County School System he teaches in, saying that getting kids outdoors is encouraged by his school system. On Saturday mornings, for the last two years, he made his way to the farmers’ market on the square in downtown Monticello. You could find him behind a table of tomato, watermelon and cantaloupe seedlings planted by his then middle school biology students.

They sold their plants as a fund raiser, using any money earned towards buying more seedlings or adding to their greenhouse.

James is still opening windows and doors through Language Arts. Teaching eighth grade students who are enrolled in a ninth grade class, he talks with them about today’s current issues and policies. The students read articles from The Washington Post and The New York Times and listen to podcasts.

After reading, listening and discussing the issues, the students formulate their own ideas, writing down their reflections in journals.

“I love being able to present issues and have them them use English Language Arts to talk about the issues,” he said. Currently, they are talking about school shootings, guns and gun ownership policies. He reads their journals privately, with anonymity and is sometimes pained, especially now with the topic of school shootings, by what he reads. “The kids,” he says, “are taking school shootings very personally.” They are taught today’s school policies in what to do in an active school shooting- Hide, Run, Fight and their writings reflect this now daily part of young people’s lives.

“I want to write a book. I have the perfect place to do that, ” he said, speaking of the farm. He entered the University of Georgia’s Master of Fine Arts program this fall and he is hopeful that this program will provide him the discipline to write his dream book—a book about his time in North Georgia. “Why North Georgia?” I asked. “I found my people there,” he said: “It was a time of metamorphosis, of discovering my ilk. I want to write a book about the contrast of cultures.”

“I identify as a writer,” adding “it’s my first love of the things that I do. I love teaching and interacting with young minds.” But writing is his passion. “More than anything I hope to leave my thoughts on pages and make people think. I am on a crusade against apathy,” he stated.

“My wife and daughter,” he added, “I treasure them above anything in the world.” I am so blessed everyday,” (his South Georgia Christian upbringing seeping through). “I know I’m very privileged,” he stated, exhaling peacefully and shaking his head as almost in disbelief that he is so lucky. “And, I know I didn’t get here on my own.”