Conversations with Kentucky Writers

Conversations with Kentucky Writers PDF

Author: Linda Elisabeth LaPinta

Publisher: University Press of Kentucky

Published: 2014-10-17

Total Pages: 408

ISBN-13: 0813157161

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Kentucky and Kentuckians are full of stories, which may be why so many present-day writers have Kentucky roots. Whether they left and returned, like Wendell Berry and Bobbie Ann Mason, or adopted Kentucky as home, like James Still and Jim Wayne Miller, or grew up and left for good, like Michael Dorris and Barbara Kingsolver, they have one connection: Kentucky has influenced their writing and their lives. L. Elisabeth Beattie explores this influence in twenty intimate interviews. Conversations with Kentucky Writers was more than three years in the making, as Beattie traveled across the state and beyond to capture oral histories on tape. Her exhaustive knowledge of these authors helped her draw out personal revelations about their work, their lives, and the nature of writing. When Still concludes his interview with "I believe I've told you more than anybody," he could be speaking for any of Beattie's subjects. Aspiring writers will learn that Mason submitted twenty stories to the New Yorker before one was accepted, and that Still wrote articles for Sunday school magazines. There's plenty of advice: Dorris tells budding authors to get real jobs, keep journals, and read everything, even cereal boxes, and Marsha Norman reminds playwrights that "it is not the business of the theater to provide writers with a living." Kingsolver advises, "Read good stuff and write bad stuff until eventually what you're writing begins to approximate what you're reading." Beattie's collection includes striking self-portraits of such writers as Sue Grafton, Leon Driskell, James Baker Hall, Fenton Johnson, George Ella Lyon, Taylor McCafferty, Ed McClanahan, Sena Naslund, Chris Offutt, Lee Pennington, and Betty Layman Receveur.What most distinguishes these moving conversations from other author interviews is their focus on creativity, on the teaching of writing, and on the authors' strong sense of place.As Wade Hall writes in his foreword, all twenty writers recognize that their works have been significantly influenced by their "Kentucky experience." This collection offers insights into Kentucky's rich and flowering literary heritage.

Conversations with Kentucky Writers

Conversations with Kentucky Writers PDF

Author: Linda Elisabeth LaPinta

Publisher: University Press of Kentucky

Published: 2021-11-21

Total Pages: 750

ISBN-13: 0813187605

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Kentucky and Kentuckians are full of stories, which may be why so many present-day writers have Kentucky roots. Whether they left and returned, like Wendell Berry and Bobbie Ann Mason, or adopted Kentucky as home, like James Still and Jim Wayne Miller, or grew up and left for good, like Michael Dorris and Barbara Kingsolver, they have one connection: Kentucky has influenced their writing and their lives. L. Elisabeth Beattie explores this influence in twenty intimate interviews. Conversations with Kentucky Writers was more than three years in the making, as Beattie traveled across the state and beyond to capture oral histories on tape. Her exhaustive knowledge of these authors helped her draw out personal revelations about their work, their lives, and the nature of writing. When Still concludes his interview with "I believe I've told you more than anybody," he could be speaking for any of Beattie's subjects. Aspiring writers will learn that Mason submitted twenty stories to the New Yorker before one was accepted, and that Still wrote articles for Sunday school magazines. There's plenty of advice: Dorris tells budding authors to get real jobs, keep journals, and read everything, even cereal boxes, and Marsha Norman reminds playwrights that "it is not the business of the theater to provide writers with a living." Kingsolver advises, "Read good stuff and write bad stuff until eventually what you're writing begins to approximate what you're reading." Beattie's collection includes striking self-portraits of such writers as Sue Grafton, Leon Driskell, James Baker Hall, Fenton Johnson, George Ella Lyon, Taylor McCafferty, Ed McClanahan, Sena Naslund, Chris Offutt, Lee Pennington, and Betty Layman Receveur. What most distinguishes these moving conversations from other author interviews is their focus on creativity, on the teaching of writing, and on the authors' strong sense of place. As Wade Hall writes in his foreword, all twenty writers recognize that their works have been significantly influenced by their "Kentucky experience." This collection offers insights into Kentucky's rich and flowering literary heritage.

Conversations with Kentucky Writers II

Conversations with Kentucky Writers II PDF

Author: Linda Elisabeth LaPinta

Publisher: University Press of Kentucky

Published: 2021-10-21

Total Pages: 463

ISBN-13: 0813185246

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In this sequel to Conversations with Kentucky Writers, L. Elisabeth Beattie brings together in-depth interviews with sixteen of the state's premiere wordsmiths. This new volume offers the perspectives of poets, journalists, and scholars as they discuss their views on creativity, the teaching of writing, and the importance of Kentucky in their work. They talk frankly about how and why they do what they do. The writers speak for themselves, and their thoughts come alive on the page. Beattie's interviews reveal the allegiances and alliances among Kentucky writers that have shaped literary trends by bringing together people with shared interests, values, subjects, and styles. The interviewees include authors who are captivated in other writers and in what they have to say about the process and craft of writing; educators who are interested in Kentucky writers and what their work reveals about the nature of creativity; and historians who are concerned with Kentucky's literary and cultural heritage. The interviews reveal patterns in Kentucky literature from mid-century to the millennium, as authors talk about how their sense of place has changed over the decades and reveal the ways in which the roots of Kentucky writing have produced a literary flowering at the century's end. Includes: Sallie Bingham, Joy Bale Boone, Thomas D. Clark, John Egerton, Sarah Gorham, Lynwood Montell, Maureen Morehead, John Ed Pearce, Ameilia Blossom Pegram, Karen Robards, Jeffrey Skinner, Frederick Smock, Frank Steele, Martha Bennett Stiles, Richard Taylor, and Michael Williams.

Home and Beyond

Home and Beyond PDF

Author: Morris Allen Grubbs

Publisher: University Press of Kentucky

Published: 2013-04-06

Total Pages: 460

ISBN-13: 0813143934

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“A bountiful smorgasbord of classic and lesser known stories by accomplished Kentucky writers who provide a feast for readers of modern short fiction.” —Ann Charters, author of The Story and Its Writer With an introduction by Wade Hall Morris Grubbs has sifted through vintage classics, little-known gems, and stunning debuts to assemble this collection of forty stories by popular and critically acclaimed writers. In subtle and profound ways, they challenge and overturn accepted stereotypes about the land their authors call home, whether by birth or by choice. Kentucky writers have produced some of the finest short stories published in the last fifty years, much of which focuses on the tension between the comforts of community and the siren-like lure of the outside world. Arranged chronologically, from Robert Penn Warren’s “Blackberry Winter” to Crystal E. Wilkinson’s “Humming Back Yesterday,” these stories are linked by their juxtaposition of departures and returns, the familiar and the unknown, home and beyond. “The story of the Commonwealth of Kentucky is told and retold by a mixed but balanced chorus of voices that sings like the wind down the ridges and along the creekbeds.” —Appalachian Journal “Readers needn’t be from Kentucky to appreciate these stories . . . Prepare to be wowed by these superior examples of the form.” —The Bloomsbury Review “From Robert Penn Warren to Bobbie Ann Mason, Kentucky hatches writers like other states create tourist traps.” —The Nashville Tennessean “If you love Kentucky authors, this anthology of short stories is a must for your Kentucky collection.” —Bourbon Times

Savory Memories

Savory Memories PDF

Author: Linda Elisabeth LaPinta

Publisher: University Press of Kentucky

Published: 2021-12-14

Total Pages: 218

ISBN-13: 0813189454

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Writers love to tell stories, so when L. Elisabeth Beattie remarked that her next book ought to be a Kentucky writers' cookbook, Betty Layman Receveur replied, "Actually, all my sons ever demand of me is my pound cake." Adding a cup of this and a pinch of that, Beattie cooked up Savory Memories, a collection of twenty-two essays about particular dishes that call up warm memories in the writers. Featuring recipes and memories from writers such as Joy Bale Boone, George Ella Lyon, Ronni Ludy, Ed McClanahan, Sena Jeter Naslund, and Richard Taylor, this is both a cookbook and a compendium of sentiments. This warm and enjoyable blending of essays, illustrations, and recipes is leavened with humor and laden with nostalgia. As much as the food, these writers celebrate the personalities who lovingly prepared and provided their favorite dishes, sustaining life and helping to shape the personas of the authors themselves. A collection of highly personal recollections, Savory Memories is a veritable smorgasbord of delights.

The Kentucky Anthology

The Kentucky Anthology PDF

Author: Wade Hall

Publisher: University Press of Kentucky

Published: 2010-09-12

Total Pages: 898

ISBN-13: 0813128994

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Long before the official establishment of the Commonwealth, intrepid pioneers ventured west of the Allegheny Mountains into an expansive, alluring wilderness that they began to call Kentucky. After blazing trails, clearing plots, and surviving innumerable challenges, a few adventurers found time to pen celebratory tributes to their new homeland. In the two centuries that followed, many of the world’s finest writers, both native Kentuckians and visitors, have paid homage to the Bluegrass State with the written word. In The Kentucky Anthology, acclaimed author and literary historian Wade Hall has assembled an unprecedented and comprehensive compilation of writings pertaining to Kentucky and its land, people, and culture. Hall’s introductions to each author frame both popular and lesser-known selections in a historical context. He examines the major cultural and political developments in the history of the Commonwealth, finding both parallels and marked distinctions between Kentucky and the rest of the United States. While honoring the heritage of Kentucky in all its glory, Hall does not blithely turn away from the state’s most troubling episodes and institutions such as racism, slavery, and war. Hall also builds the argument, bolstered by the strength and significance of the collected writings, that Kentucky’s best writers compare favorably with the finest in the world. Many of the authors presented here remain universally renowned and beloved, while others have faded into the tides of time, waiting for rediscovery. Together, they guide the reader on a literary tour of Kentucky, from the mines to the rivers and from the deepest hollows to the highest peaks. The Kentucky Anthology traces the interests and aspirations, the achievements and failures and the comedies and tragedies that have filled the lives of generations of Kentuckians. These diaries, letters, speeches, essays, poems, and stories bring history brilliantly to life. Jesse Stuart once wrote, “If these United States can be called a body, Kentucky can be called its heart.” The Kentucky Anthology captures the rhythm and spirit of that heart in the words of its most remarkable chroniclers.

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