This Side of the Mountain

This Side of the Mountain James Gage Welcome to the winter issue of Appalachian Heritage and the commencement of our thirtieth year of publication. We are pleased to be able to continue providing the people of Southern Appalachia with their own literary magazine, in which the region's finest voices give expression to the lives, values, aesthetics and imaginations of Southern Mountaineers. In this issue are Charles May's interview with nationally-recognized short story writer Chris Offutt, Loyal Jones's lecture on poet and scholar Jim Wayne Miller, presented at this past summer's Appalachian Writers Workshop, memories ofJames Still from the journal ofbook-lover Frank Bourne, essays from Bo Ball and Gayle Compton, new short stories and poems from throughout the region, information regarding new Appalachian books from George Brosi of Appalachian Mountain Books, and the photography of East Tennessee's Randy Ball. We hope you enjoy this late winter's read, and we hope you will share your Appalachian Heritage with friends and neighbors—homestyle distribution for a homegrown publication. Or, better yet, contribute to the literary life of our region by gifting a friend with a subscription to Appalachian Heritage. The spring issue will announce the 2001 Plattner Award winners for excellence in writing, explore the poetics of three Appalachian women, and of course it will feature new fiction, articles of interest, drawings and photography, and information regarding new publications from throughout the Mountain South. ...