"Our only sin was not having what they thought was enough. And being forced to take what they called help."Pain and anger resonate deeply in the voice of "New Covenant Bound"'s central narrator. Forced from her homeland on the Tennessee River in the 1930s, she recounts the memory of upheaval and destruction caused by the Tennessee Valley Authority.The Western Kentucky area that now boasts beautiful, expansive bodies of water was once home to some 20,000 people, their houses, farms, townships and ancestral history. Residents were subjected to three waves of forced relocation to make way for...
"Our only sin was not having what they thought was enough. And being forced to take what they called help."Pain and anger resonate deeply in the voice...
Author, activist, feminist, teacher, and artist bell hooks is celebrated as one of the nation's leading intellectuals. Born in Hopkinsville, Kentucky, hooks drew her unique pseudonym from the name of her grandmother, an intelligent and strong-willed African American woman who inspired her to stand up against a dominating and repressive society. Her poetry, novels, memoirs, and children's books reflect her Appalachian upbringing and feature her struggles with racially integrated schools and unwelcome authority figures. One of Utne Reader's "100 Visionaries Who Can Change Your Life,"...
Author, activist, feminist, teacher, and artist bell hooks is celebrated as one of the nation's leading intellectuals. Born in Hopkinsville, Kentuc...
Born in the small, eastern Kentucky coal-mining town of Harlan, George Ella Lyon began her career with Mountain, a chapbook of poems. She has since published many more books in multiple genres and for readers of all ages, but poetry remains at the heart of her work. Many-Storied House is her fifth collection. While teaching aspiring writers, Lyon asked her students to write a poem based on memories rooted in a house where they had lived. Working on the assignment herself, Lyon began a personal journey, writing many poems for each room. In this intimate book, she strives to answer lingering...
Born in the small, eastern Kentucky coal-mining town of Harlan, George Ella Lyon began her career with Mountain, a chapbook of poems. She has since pu...
Weaving together universal themes of family, geography, and death with images of America's frontier landscape, former Kentucky Poet Laureate Joe Survant has been lauded for his ability to capture the spirit of the land and its people. Kliatt magazine has praised his work, stating, "Survant's words sing.... This is storytelling at its best."
Exploring the pre-Columbian and frontier history of the commonwealth, The Land We Dreamed is the final installment in the poet's trilogy on rural Kentucky. The poems in the book feature several well-known figures and their stories,...
Weaving together universal themes of family, geography, and death with images of America's frontier landscape, former Kentucky Poet Laureate Joe Su...
Appalachia is no stranger to loss. The region suffers regular ecological devastation wrought by strip mining, fracking, and deforestation as well as personal tragedy brought on by enduring poverty and drug addiction. In Driving with the Dead, Appalachian poet, teacher, and artist Jane Hicks weaves an earnest and impassioned elegy for an imperiled yet doggedly optimistic people and place. Exploring the roles that war, environment, culture, and violence play in Appalachian society, the hard-hitting collection is visceral and unflinchingly honest, mourning a land and people devastated...
Appalachia is no stranger to loss. The region suffers regular ecological devastation wrought by strip mining, fracking, and deforestation as well a...
When Kathleen Driskell tells her husband that she's gone to visit the neighbors, she means something different than most. The noted poet -- whose last book, Seed across Snow, was twice listed as a national bestseller by the Poetry Foundation -- lives in an old country church just outside Louisville, Kentucky. Next door is an old graveyard that she was told had fallen out of use. In this marvelous new collection, this turns out not to be the case as the poet's fascination with the "neighbors" brings the burial ground back to life.
Driskell frequently strolls the cemetery...
When Kathleen Driskell tells her husband that she's gone to visit the neighbors, she means something different than most. The noted poet -- whose l...
Along with his siblings, Raphael Hardin left his childhood home in rural Kentucky. Grappling with an AIDS diagnosis, he returns to care for his dying father. Told from the perspectives of Raphael, his family, and their lifelong neighbor, Fenton Johnson's landmark novel reveals the blood struggles and binding loves of a broken family made whole.
Along with his siblings, Raphael Hardin left his childhood home in rural Kentucky. Grappling with an AIDS diagnosis, he returns to care for his dyi...
Make no mistake: Martha Bragg Picket is a headstrong southern woman with a rebellious spirit, a characteristic her son Michael shares. Yet to see her after almost twenty years of marriage, it might no longer seem clear. A Yankee contractor's arrival in town catalyzes her dissatisfaction, leading her to turn her life upside down -- unaware that her son will follow suit. Both heartfelt and shrewdly humorous, this widely acclaimed first novel from author Fenton Johnson is an affecting look at one woman's reawakening and her son's coming of age in the heartland of America.
Make no mistake: Martha Bragg Picket is a headstrong southern woman with a rebellious spirit, a characteristic her son Michael shares. Yet to see h...
The residents of Water Street are hardworking, God-fearing people who live in a seemingly safe and insulated neighborhood within a small Kentucky town: "Water Street is a place where mothers can turn their backs to flip a pancake or cornmeal hoecake on the stove and know our children are safe." But all is not as it seems as the secret lives of neighbors and friends are revealed in interconnected tales of love, loss, truth, and tragedy.
In this critically acclaimed short story collection, Crystal Wilkinson peels back the intricate layers that form the fabric of this community and its...
The residents of Water Street are hardworking, God-fearing people who live in a seemingly safe and insulated neighborhood within a small Kentucky t...
As the title implies, this beautifully written collection bursts with stories reminiscent of blackberries----small, succulent morsels that are inviting and sweet, yet sometimes bitter. Crystal Wilkinson provides an almost voyeuristic glimpse into the lives of her characters: Two misfit teenagers seek stolen moments of love and acceptance in the cloak of night ("Hushed"); a woman spends every waking hour obsessed with dying yet ironically watching her loved ones pass away before her ("Waiting on the Reaper"); a wife confronts her husband's mistress in a diner over potato skins and cornbread...
As the title implies, this beautifully written collection bursts with stories reminiscent of blackberries----small, succulent morsels that are invi...
