Barefoot Missouri Days: Birchwood Press

Baylis Glascock was born and raised on the family's farm in New London, Missouri, ten miles from Hannibal, where Mark Twain lived and wrote. It had been purchased by his great-grandfather in 1875 with proceeds from the Gold Rush. Baylis's stories are filled with Americana that is folksy, funny, and at times heartbreaking. With a sense of wonder and a wry wit, he explains his bafflement with all things sexual and his equal confusion over racial, ethnic, and economic disparity, realities that he treats with sensitivity. After two years at the the University of Missouri, Baylis moved to Los Angeles, where he took filmmaking courses at USC and worked for Walt Disney. Later he worked on numerous projects as a filmmaker, editor, and director alongside Robert Snyder, documenting Henry Miller and Buckminster Fuller, and he made his own films of artist Sister Corita. His experimental film of the Watts Towers is preserved by the Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Sciences.