Writing Appalachia: An Anthology
Katherine Ledford and Theresa Lloyd
Abstract
From the earliest oral traditions to print accounts of frontier exploration, from local color to modernism and postmodernism, from an exuberant flowering in the 1970s to its high popular and critical profile in the twenty-first century, Appalachian literature can boast a long tradition of delighting and provoking readers. Yet, locating an anthology that offers a representative selection of authors and texts from the earliest days to the present can be difficult. Katherine Ledford and Theresa Lloyd have produced an anthology to meet this need. Simultaneously representing, complicating, and furt ... More
From the earliest oral traditions to print accounts of frontier exploration, from local color to modernism and postmodernism, from an exuberant flowering in the 1970s to its high popular and critical profile in the twenty-first century, Appalachian literature can boast a long tradition of delighting and provoking readers. Yet, locating an anthology that offers a representative selection of authors and texts from the earliest days to the present can be difficult. Katherine Ledford and Theresa Lloyd have produced an anthology to meet this need. Simultaneously representing, complicating, and furthering the discourse on the Appalachian region and its cultures, this anthology works to provides the historical depth and range of Appalachian literature that contemporary readers and scholars seek, from Cherokee oral narratives to fiction and drama about mountaintop removal and prescription drug abuse. It also aims to challenge the common stereotypes of Appalachian life and values by including stories of multiple, often less heard, viewpoints of Appalachian life: mountain and valley, rural and urban, folkloric and postmodern, traditional and contemporary, Northern and Southern, white people and people of color, straight and gay, insiders and outsiders—though, on some level, these dualisms are less concrete than previously imagined.
Keywords:
Cherokee Narratives,
James Fenimore Cooper,
Fannie Fain,
Booker T. Washington,
Olive Dame Campbell,
Lucy Furman,
Coal Miners Protest Songs,
Folk Stories,
Folk Songs,
Jesse Stuart,
James Still,
Harriette Arnow,
Nikki Giovanni,
Fred Chappell,
Jim Wayne Miller,
Gurney Norman,
Lisa Alther,
George Ella Lyon,
Jo Carson,
Frank X Walker,
Ron Rash,
Ricardo Nazario y Colon,
Crystal Wilkinson,
Silas House,
Wendall Berry,
Tony Earley,
Jeff Mann,
Barbara Kingsolver,
bell hooks,
Robert Gipe
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2020 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780813178790 |
| Published to Kentucky Scholarship Online: September 2020 |
DOI:10.5810/kentucky/9780813178790.001.0001 |
