Understanding Fred Chappell introduces readers to a writer of poems, novels, and short stories whose accolades include France's prestigious Prix de Meilleur des Livres Etrangers, the Bollingen Prize, and the T. S. Eliot Prize. John Lang critiques more than twenty volumes of poetry and fiction of Chappell's work, which was published during a literary career that has spanned nearly four decades. Lang evaluates Chappell's tetralogy of novels that begins with I Am One of You Forever; Midquest, the first five volumes of poetry, the different books of poems published between Castle Tzingal and...

The last quarter-century has seen a remarkable outpouring of fiction and poetry from southern Appalachia-a surge of creativity that has formed an integral part of a larger, and still growing, regional self-consciousness. This book charts the course of this literary renaissance through twenty-one interviews with contemporary Appalachian writers, conversations conducted between 1983 and 2003 at Emory & Henry College's annual literary festival and originally printed in the Iron Mountain Review. The authors interviewed range from nationally known figures such as Fred Chappell, Robert Morgan, Lee...