Mark Givens: The Last Full-Time Farmer in Clover Hollow
by Fred Carlisle

Mark Givens, dedicated to his father and the family farm, fights the odds to make a living in Southwest Virginia.

Read an excerpt.

Against the Odds: Min Matheson and the ILGWU
by Kenneth C. Wolensky & Robert P. Wolensky

A vibrant union and a community on the mend were the gifts given by a feisty Chicago-born woman to her adopted home in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.

Nick Stump, a Bluegrass transplant and a practitioner of electric hillbilly blues, remembers his Eastern Kentucky roots.

Kudzu, kudzu, kudzu ... What else can you say about Appalachian literature?

Musician Susi Seguret remembers how her back-to-the-wilderness pioneer parents, Peter and Polly Gott, created a life in the North Carolina mountains under the watchful eyes of their slightly perplexed neighbors.

A young West Virginia girl is introduced to a rough-and-tumble, all-too-real world in the bars of Route 28.

Read an excerpt.

Extending traditional mountain hospitality to particularly colorful neighbors is almost more than one East Tennessee family can bear.

A granddaughter struggles to let go of her beloved Cherokee grandmother.

Slips of climbing red roses represent one family’s shared memories.

The Appalachian Fiction Competition Winners

Read the outstanding stories that captured top honors in Now & Then’s 1999 Appalachian Fiction Competition. Robert Morgan served as the final judge.

The Pillar of William’s Grave
First Bank & Trust First Prize Winner
by Kevin Stewart

“Pushing through the front door, T.W. cradled something small the size of a baby, wrapped in a mover’s blanket. His hair was damp and messy. Two days of whiskers covered his narrow face. Drying mud caked his flannel shirt and blue jeans. ‘What is that?’ she said, pointing to the bundle, but she knew ...”

"She turned on him, her face awful, eyes hard as granite. As she moved, she took from under her shawl something long and dark, held it in her fist...”

Incoming Fire by Dan Leidig

The Cuban Poet at the Holston River by Virgil Suarez

Sergeant Father, Sir by Tyler Parris

Mountain Man by Susan Snowden

Revival by William Miller

Aunt Emmy, Little Jenny by David Staudt

Shelter by Katherine Smith

Another Country: Journeying Toward the Cherokee Mountains by Christopher Camuto, reviewed by Thomas Rain Crowe

A Room Forever, The Life, Work, and Letters of Breece D’J Pancake by Thomas E. Douglass, reviewed by Stephen D. Mooney

Appalachian Mountain Girl by Rhoda Bailey Warren, reviewed by Jennifer Mullins Mooney

An Appreciation of Rocket Boys: A Memoir by Homer H. Hickam Jr., reviewed by Darla Dye

Photo credits (from the top): Fred Carlisle; courtesy of ILGWU/UNITE!; courtesy of Nick Stump; Fran Belin; Otis Martin; Nancy Jane Earnest; courtesy of Irene B. Howie; courtesy of Carol Guthrie Heilman; David Simon; courtesy of Cyril and Lillian Carver; John Earle. None of these images may be reproduced without permission.

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