New Appalachian Books: Write-Ups

NEW APPALACHIAN BOOKS Write-Ups____________ George Brosi Sandra L. Ballard and Patricia L. Hudson. Listen Here: Women Writing in Appalachia. Lexington, Kentucky: The University Press of Kentucky, 2003. 673 pages with an index. Hardback in dust jacket. $45.00. What a wonderful encyclopedia of Appalachia's women writers! Too bad we don't have such a work for our writers of both genders! Nevertheless, this is nice to have. Because this volume covers more than one hundred writers and mentions over one hundred more, most authors have only about four or five pages, but these pages include sketches of the writers' lives plus bibliographies and then prose excerpts and/or poems giving the reader a good feel for each writer. The sketches, excerpts and bibliographies are quite apt and well executed and very interesting. The selection of primary authors included is basically authoritative, but authors of children's books should have been completely left out instead of being included on a hit-and-miss basis. Sandra Ballard is the editor of The Appalachian Journal for Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina. Pat Hudson is a free-lance writer who has worked for Alex Haley, John Rice Irwin, and other notables from Knoxville, Tennessee. Leatha Kendrick. Science in Your Own Back Yard. Monterey, Kentucky: Larkspur Press, 2003. 35 pages. Handsewn paperback. $18.00. This book, limited to 600 copies hand-set and hand-fed and handsewn with a cover drawing by Carolyn Whitesel, is a stunning work of art. The title comes from the first poem and refers to the name of a book that Kendrick relished as a young girl growing up on a farm in Simpson County, Kentucky, the daughter of a veterinarian. The poems center around the author's struggle with breast cancer. They are a moving testament to an indomitable spirit. Kendrick currently divides her time between homes in Floyd County and Lexington, Kentucky. Edwina Pendarvis. Like the Mountains ofChina. Ashland, Kentucky: Blair Mountain Press, 2003. 78 pages. Trade paperback. $11.95. 98 Wow, the range of these poems is terrific! From Harlan coal miners to Chinese Communists fighting the Kuomintang, to an Ohio prison to Einstein's brain to Pikeville, Kentucky, to a meteor shower. "I trust this poetic voice and this vision which sees deeply into the life of the Appalachian world, human and animal, and sometimes, the divine."— Irene McKinney, West Virginia Poet Laureate. "Pendarvis—a 'pure product' ofAppalachia—employs regional sensibilities as a lens through which she views other places, other times. And she does so with an eye for the memorable image, an ear that is careful and subtle, and an excellent instinct for pacing and crafting a line." - Phillip St. Clair. Pendarvis teaches at Marshall University in Huntington, West Virginia. Billy Edd Wheeler. Star of Appalachia. Haverford, Pennsylvania: Infinity Publishing, 2003. 269 pages. Trade paperback. $15.95. Billy Edd Wheeler grew up in Boone County, West Virginia, and attended Warren Wilson and Berea Colleges before studying drama at Yale and then returning to live in the Swannanoa Valley of North Carolina and in Nashville. Songs that Wheeler has written have been recorded by artists ranging from Elvis to Peter, Paul and Mary, and have sold over sixty million copies. His fourth outdoor drama, based on the life of Johnny Appleseed, will debut next summer. He is the author or co-author of six humor books and two poetry books, but this is his first novel. It is the story of Gabriel Leatherwood, a North Carolina mountaineer who travels to Nashville to investigate who stole his songs and ends up learning a whole lot more than he bargained for and falling in love in the process. "This novel combines the magic of the music industry, the purity and freedom of mountain culture, plenty of action, and triumph over evil in lyrical prose from a born storyteller."—Ralph Roberts. Newly Reprinted Books Garry Barker. Mountain Passage. Ashland, Kentucky: The Jesse Stuart Foundation, a 2003 reprint of a 1986 release. 250 pages. Trade paperback. $15.00. Garry Barker is one of Eastern Kentucky's better storytellers, and it is great to have his first collection back in print again. The Jesse Stuart Foundation...