Below is a news release for a volume that features my poem “Conversation on a Rail.”

News Release: The third volume of The Anthology of Appalachian Writers, Bobbie Ann Mason edition, is now for sale at the Shepherd University Book Store (see http://www.shepherdbook.com/).  This newest book in the collection  presents a selection of stories, essays, poetry, and photographic art, which provide readers with an extraordinary look at the language, storytelling, cultural traditions and heritage of Appalachians—Appalachians working and living in the region today and yesterday.         

As with each previous volume, a common center is provided by the literary art and talent of the 2010 Appalachian Heritage Writer-in-Residence at Shepherd University and recipient of the Heritage Writer’s Award—Kentucky writer Bobbie Ann Mason.  Mason’s work brings to literary life the common folk and the everyday working classes—living, learning, and trying to cope and survive in the complex world they find before them.  

The book also contains stories by two winners of the 2010 West Virginia Fiction Competition selected by Mason.  Mason wrote of Natalie Sypolt’s “Save the Lettuce”: “This is a tight, controlled, powerful story.  Nothing is overdone.”  Like Mason’s award-winning novel In Country, Sypolt’s short fiction piece is a powerful story about war without the war.  Read the rest of this entry »