Fall 2004
Barbara Kingsolver,
a native of Carlisle, KY, has achieved a spot in The Best
of Book Sense From the First Five Years for her novel The
Poisonwood Bible in the Adult Fiction division.
[ Read
more ]
At the 2004 Annual Conference of the Appalachian Writers Association Sidney Saylor Farr, Editor of Appalachian Heritage from 1985-1999, was honored for Outstanding Contribution to Appalachian Literature. The Fiction Book of the Year for 2003 was The Midwife’s Tale by Gretchen Laskas. The Non-Fiction Book of the Year was Songs of Life and Grace by Linda Scott DeRosier and the Poetry Book of the Year was Alive in Hard Country by Richard Hague. The winner of the 2004 Contest for Poetry: Judy Loest’s “Knoxville: Summer, 2003,” for Fiction: David Lee Kirkland’s “Story Suite,” for Nonfiction: Janice Willis Barnett’s “Red, White, and Jesus” and for Drama: Dan Leonard’s A Long Summer.
John O’Brien of Green Bank, WV, who won the Weatherford Award in 2001 for At Home in the Heart of Appalachia, died on October 19.
Lon Savage, a Charleston native who wrote Thunder in the Mountains (1985), died at his home in Salem, VA on Tuesday, July 27, 2004.
USA Today named The Coal Tattoo by Silas House one of six books on its Recommended Fall Reading list for 2004.
Silas House’s The Coal Tattoo, Ron Rash’s Saints at the River, and Shelia Kay Adam’s My One True Love have all appeared on the Southeastern Booksellers Association’s best-seller lists.
Jack Spararo, of Hamlin, WV, the subject of “This Side of the Mountain” for the Spring 2004 issue, has won the 2004 Jenco Award for his work with mine safety.
Appalachia's only Pulitzer-Prize-winning novelist, James Agee (1909-1955) has an essay in The Best American Essays 2004. [ Read More ]