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Articles |
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Balancing Act: An Interview with Silas House
by Jane Harris Woodside
A conversation with a young novelist from Eastern Kentucky whose first book, Clay's Quilt, has generated lots of excitement.
Read an excerpt. |
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The Mighty and Enduring Pen of John O'Hara
by Christine M. Goldbeck
Writer John O'Hara set out to tell the truth about life in his hometown in Pennsylvania's anthracite region. Some folks still haven't forgiven him.
Read an excerpt
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Essays |
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How to Write West Virginian
by Kevin Stewart
Kevin Stewart, winner of Now & Then’s 1999 Appalachian Fiction Competition, finds that being a West Virginia writer isn’t easy: It takes long hours of sipping wine, eating cheese, staring at a computer screen, and fielding insults.
Read an excerpt. |
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Fiction |
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The Winners of Now & Then’s 2001 Appalachian Fiction Competition Read the outstanding stories that captured top honors in Now & Then’s 2001 Appalachian Fiction Competition. Lee Smith served as the final judge. |
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The Burning Tree
First Bank & Trust First Prize Winner
by Wayne T. Caldwell
“Henry Sutton was plowing when he heard the school house bell ring ten times running. He stopped the mule and stared in that direction. It wasn’t a fire; at least there was no smoke, no more than cookfires and burning trees would account for. The mule snorted and looked vaguely down the field. Henry didn’t know what the trouble was, but on Wednesday afternoon about two o’clock that fool bell shouldn’t have been ringing. He waited. ...” |
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Spring Cleaning
The University of Tennessee Press Second Prize Winner
by Tami Penley
“Maybe Willard was right. She was losing her mind. It was her turn, wasn’t it? She'd fought off the urges, the madness, since she was a child. The madness rode in her Salyers blood, she’d been reminded all her life by her mother, tainted with some Old World strain that tended to drive the women from her father’s side of the family crazy. She’d heard the tales about Salyers women. Wild women. Bad women who danced and smoked pipes and didn’t keep clean houses. ...” |
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Other fiction in the issue includes: |
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Changeling
by Laura Weddle
“Me and Wilma hid in the walnut tree up behind Mr. Ben’s house to watch the gypsy wagon come down the road. It had a blue wooden cover painted with white stripes and red flowers with green vines curling around the top and sides. I thought it was beautiful, but Wilma said gypsies only painted their wagons that way to hide how mean they was and to throw people off their tracks. …” |
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Prologue to Clay’s Quilt
by Silas House
“They were in a car going over Buffalo mountain, but the man driving was not Clay’s father. The man was hunched over the steering wheel, peering out the frosted window with hard, gray eyes. The muscle in his jaw never relaxed, and he seemed to have an extra, square-shaped bone on the side of his face.
‘No way we’ll make it without getting killed,’ the man said. His lips were thin and white. …” |
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Fences
by James Alan Riley
“Jason wasn’t looking forward to rebuilding the fence around his yard, but at least he knew what he was up against when it came to building fences. It was a job that had to be done in stages, one slow step at a time, which is how Jason worked best, measuring the slope with a chalkline and level, setting his stakes. …” |
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Hero Tears
T.J. Morral
“The day of my grandfather’s funeral was cold. April rain soaked the ground and everything else that was left uncovered. My father’s cheek was the only dry place in town. …” |
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Poetry |
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Rolling Pin by Sally Buckner
Fiddle by James Still
Learning Curve by Michael Chitwood
Bread by Jeanne Bryner
The Finding by Joyce Compton Brown
Watauga County: 1803 by Ron Rash
Pencil Memory by Llewellyn McKernan
On Seeing Diego Rivera's The Liberation of the Peon by Lisa Parker
Finding Herself in Knoxville, Tennessee, On a Non-Football Saturday, The Cosmic Possum visits a Poetry Slam by A. Jane Hicks |
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Reviews |
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Clay's Quilt by Silas House, reviewed by Genie Jacobson
Jim the Boy: A Novel by Tony Earley, reviewed by Gina Herring
Time Out by Dan Leidig, reviewed by Dan M. Johnson
Handiwork by Jim Clark, reviewed by Ben Greene
Blackberries, Blackberries by Crystal E. Wilkinson, reviewed by Marie Bradby
Heart Cake by Leatha Kendrick, reviewed by Richard Taylor
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Image credits (from the top): Stewart Bowman ©The (Louisville, Ky.) Courier-Journal, Christine M. Goldbeck, Nat Hardy, Drue Dixon, Nancy Zimbalist, Nancy Jane Earnest, Nancy Fischman, Nancy Fischman, David Simon, Jeanne M. Rasmussen Collection at the ETSU Archives of Appalachia. Images may not be reproduced without permission.
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