The Silent Appalachian

The Silent Appalachian
Author: Vicki Sigmon Collins
Publisher: McFarland
Total Pages: 226
Release: 2017-01-03
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1476667683

Appalachian literature is filled with silent or non-discursive characters. The reasons for their wordlessness vary. Some are mute or pretend to be, some choose not to speak or are silenced by grief, trauma or fear. Others mutter monosyllables, stutter, grunt and point, speak in tongues or idiosyncratic language. They capture the reader's attention by what they don't say.

These Silent Woods

These Silent Woods
Author: Kimi Cunningham Grant
Publisher: Minotaur Books
Total Pages: 280
Release: 2021-11-16
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1250793408

A father and daughter living in the remote Appalachian mountains must reckon with the ghosts of their past in Kimi Cunningham Grant's These Silent Woods, a mesmerizing novel of suspense. No electricity, no family, no connection to the outside world. For eight years, Cooper and his young daughter, Finch, have lived in isolation in a remote cabin in the northern Appalachian woods. And that's exactly the way Cooper wants it, because he's got a lot to hide. Finch has been raised on the books filling the cabin’s shelves and the beautiful but brutal code of life in the wilderness. But she’s starting to push back against the sheltered life Cooper has created for her—and he’s still haunted by the painful truth of what it took to get them there. The only people who know they exist are a mysterious local hermit named Scotland, and Cooper's old friend, Jake, who visits each winter to bring them food and supplies. But this year, Jake doesn't show up, setting off an irreversible chain of events that reveals just how precarious their situation really is. Suddenly, the boundaries of their safe haven have blurred—and when a stranger wanders into their woods, Finch’s growing obsession with her could put them all in danger. After a shocking disappearance threatens to upend the only life Finch has ever known, Cooper is forced to decide whether to keep hiding—or finally face the sins of his past. Vividly atmospheric and masterfully tense, These Silent Woods is a poignant story of survival, sacrifice, and how far a father will go when faced with losing it all.

A Walk in the Woods

A Walk in the Woods
Author: Bill Bryson
Publisher: Anchor Canada
Total Pages: 322
Release: 2012-05-15
Genre: Travel
ISBN: 0385674546

God only knows what possessed Bill Bryson, a reluctant adventurer if ever there was one, to undertake a gruelling hike along the world's longest continuous footpath—The Appalachian Trail. The 2,000-plus-mile trail winds through 14 states, stretching along the east coast of the United States, from Georgia to Maine. It snakes through some of the wildest and most spectacular landscapes in North America, as well as through some of its most poverty-stricken and primitive backwoods areas. With his offbeat sensibility, his eye for the absurd, and his laugh-out-loud sense of humour, Bryson recounts his confrontations with nature at its most uncompromising over his five-month journey. An instant classic, riotously funny, A Walk in the Woods will add a whole new audience to the legions of Bill Bryson fans.

Boone Before Boone

Boone Before Boone
Author: Tom Whyte
Publisher: McFarland
Total Pages: 189
Release: 2020-10-28
Genre: History
ISBN: 1476641366

Native Americans have occupied the mountains of northwestern North Carolina for around 14,000 years. This book tells the story of their lives, adaptations, responses to climate change, and ultimately, the devastation brought on by encounters with Europeans. After a brief introduction to archaeology, the book covers each time period, chapter by chapter, beginning with the Paleoindian period in the Ice Age and ending with the arrival of Daniel Boone in 1769, with descriptions and interpretations of archaeological evidence for each time period. Each chapter begins with a fictional vignette to kindle the reader's imaginings of ancient human life in the mountains, and includes descriptions and numerous images of sites and artifacts discovered in Boone, North Carolina, and the surrounding region.

Tommy Thompson

Tommy Thompson
Author: Lewis M. Stern
Publisher: McFarland
Total Pages: 248
Release: 2019-04-10
Genre: Music
ISBN: 1476675082

Tommy Thompson arrived in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, in 1963, smitten by folk and traditional Appalachian music. In 1972, he teamed with Bill Hicks and Jim Watson to form the nontraditional string band the Red Clay Ramblers. Mike Craver joined in 1973, and Jack Herrick in 1976. Over time, musicians including Clay Buckner, Bland Simpson and Chris Frank joined Tommy, who played with the band until 1994. Drawing on interviews and correspondence, and the personal papers of Thompson, the author depicts a life that revolved around music and creativity. Appendices cover Thompson's banjos, his discography and notes on his collaborative lyric writing.

Wayne Howard

Wayne Howard
Author: Lewis M. Stern
Publisher: McFarland
Total Pages: 196
Release: 2021-05-20
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 1476642702

From his birth in Owensboro, Kentucky, in 1947, to his 2020 album featuring the music of Lee Hammons, Wayne Howard has lived an exceptionally creative life. He seemed to be eternally present at fiddle festivals, involved in the creative forces working to preserve Southern Mountain music. In 1969, he relocated to West Virginia and was introduced to the Hammons family by Dwight Diller. Howard then recorded Lee, Sherman, Burl, and Maggie Hammons playing music and telling stories. Howard then became a professional computer programmer, a vintage book collector, and a woodworker, before turning to writing about the Hammons family, and producing CDs of their stories and music. This biography follows the threads of music and folklore through Howard's life, celebrating his profound knowledge that does much to sustain the interest of those who seek out Appalachian tunes, songs, and stories.

Unwhite

Unwhite
Author: Meredith McCarroll
Publisher: University of Georgia Press
Total Pages: 173
Release: 2018-10-15
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 0820353361

Appalachia resides in the American imagination at the intersections of race and class in a very particular way, in the tension between deep historic investments in seeing the region as "pure white stock" and as deeply impoverished and backward. Meredith McCarroll's Unwhite analyzes the fraught location of Appalachians within the southern and American imaginaries, building on studies of race in literary and cinematic characterizations of the American South. Not only do we know what "rednecks" and "white trash" are, McCarroll argues, we rely on the continued use of such categories in fashioning our broader sense of self and other. Further, we continue to depend upon the existence of the region of Appalachia as a cultural construct. As a consequence, Appalachia has long been represented in the collective cultural history as the lowest, the poorest, the most ignorant, and the most laughable community. McCarroll complicates this understanding by asserting that white privilege remains intact while Appalachia is othered through reliance on recognizable nonwhite cinematic stereotypes. Unwhite demonstrates how typical characterizations of Appalachian people serve as foils to set off and define the "whiteness" of the non-Appalachian southerners. In this dynamic, Appalachian characters become the racial other. Analyzing the representation of the people of Appalachia in films such as Deliverance, Cold Mountain, Medium Cool, Norma Rae, Cape Fear, The Killing Season, and Winter's Bone through the critical lens of race and specifically whiteness, McCarroll offers a reshaping of the understanding of the relationship between racial and regional identities.

Melungeon Portraits

Melungeon Portraits
Author: Tamara L. Stachowicz
Publisher: McFarland
Total Pages: 219
Release: 2018-04-12
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1476669791

At a time when concepts of racial and ethnic identity increasingly define how we see ourselves and others, the ancestry of Melungeons--a Central Appalachian multiracial group believed to be of Native American, African and European origins--remains controversial. Who is Melungeon, how do we know and what does that mean? In a series of interviews with individuals who claim Melungeon heritage, the author finds common threads that point to shared history, appearance and values, and explores how we decide who we are and what kind of proof we need.

Writers by the River

Writers by the River
Author: Donia S. Eley
Publisher: McFarland
Total Pages: 273
Release: 2021-05-05
Genre: Literary Collections
ISBN: 1476684065

The Highland Summer Writing Conference (HSC), held each summer along the banks of the ancient New River at Radford University's Selu Conservancy, brings together and inspires writers as they participate in the communal art of creating and sharing. Over the years, many prestigious Appalachian authors have taught workshops to like-minded students, many of whom became published authors in their own right. This book, a celebration of the HSC, is a collection of reflective essays, poetry, fiction, and non-fiction contributed by 41 authors and student-authors who have taken part in the conference over a span of 43 years.