Description
Book SynopsisThe sixty-three fiction writers and poets within this anthology delve deep into the many senses of place that modern West Virginia, the core of Appalachia, inspires.
Throughout this collection, we see profound wonder, questioning, and conflicts involving family, sexual identity, class, discrimination, environmental beauty, and peril, and all the sorts of rebellion, error, contemplation, and contentment that an intrepid soul can devise. These stories and poems, all published within the last fifteen years, are grounded in what it means to live in and identify with a complex place.
With a mix of established writers like Jayne Anne Phillips, Norman Jordan, Ann Pancake, Maggie Anderson, and Denise Giardina and fresh voices like Matthew Neil Null, Ida Stewart, Rajia Hassib, and Scott McClanahan, this collection breaks open new visions of all-American landscapes of the heart. By turns rowdy and contemplative, hilarious and bleak, and lyrical and gritty, it is a collage of extraordinary literary visions.
Trade Review“This book is a literary treasure for West Virginia and the rest of the Appalachian region. Interwoven with prose and poetry, it is a rumination on what it means to be of a mountain place in this day and time. In vivid, fresh language West Virginians explore place, identity, family, and so much more. A rich and important addition to mountain letters, I think this book will be regarded for a long time.” - Crystal Wilkinson, author of
The Birds of Opulence, Water Street, and
Blackberries, Blackberries“Never sentimental or clichéd, this essential collection captures the complexity and richness of West Virginia today. Revealing a deep, sometimes uneasy connection to home, these stories and poems carry us into the coalfields and hollers, cities, and small towns across West Virginia, and take surprising turns along the way to illuminate its beauty, darkness, violence, and grace.” - Carter Sickels, author of
The Evening Hour“Representing the rich diversity of West Virginians, these writers offer historical, contemporary, and timeless reflections of life and death in the great mountain state through poignant, at times haunting, poetry and prose.” - Theresa L. Burriss is the Chair of Appalachian Studies at Radford University in Radford, Virginia
