Monday, May 21, 2007

All Things Appalachia

At the writer's conference I went to on Saturday, most of the authors/speakers were in some way connected to Appalachian literature. The host of the conference has written a book about his hometown of Fries, Virginia.

Speaker, JoAnn Asbury, works at the Appalachian Regional Studies Center at Radford University. They put on a conference every year where they bring in Appalachian writers to speak and hold writing workshop. For more on the conference, click here.

Asbury is also a co-editor of The Handbook to Appalachia: An Introduction to the Region. It is a comprehensive, inexpensive book featuring essays and resources on Appalachia. This book sold out at the conference, so I'm going to order it this week.

Other Appalachian children's books mentioned were:
Marilou Awaikta's Rising Fawn and the Fire Mystery
Jeff Danial Marion's Hello, Crow (Out of Print)

I have not read either one, but I want to see if I can some copies from a library or an out of print book source.

Another great Appalachian book mentioned was Gloria Houston's The Year of the Perfect Christmas Tree. I will be saying a lot about this book and it's wonderful impact in tomorrow's post.

Another FABULOUS and probably the best source of Appalachian Literature (especially information and lesson plans for kids Appalachian children's lit) is the APPLIT site connected through Ferrum College and run by Tina Hanlon (also a children's lit professor at Hollins). It is a very comprehensive site with many, many resources. This wasn't mentioned at the conference, but I have known about it for a while and think it is the definitive source for teachers and lovers of children's literature.

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