For almost a dozen years, Shepherd University, under the leadership of Sylvia Shurbutt, an English Professor there, has hosted an annual Appalachian Heritage Festival. Each year this festival features a regional writer, and last year that honor went to Charles Frazier who grew up in Andrews, North Carolina. He is the author of Cold Mountain, which won the National Book Award for 1997 and sold over three million copies worldwide. In 2003 it was adopted into an Academy Award-winning film by the same name. Subsequently, Frazier has published two additional novels, Thirteen Moons and Nightwoods. Frazier’s presence in this anthology is limited to an excerpt from Cold Mountain and an interview. Most of this volume consists essentially of a literary magazine with photographic art, poems, short stories, and a one-act play. Among the contributors are numerous relatively unknown regional writers along with West Virginia Poet Laureate, Marc Harshman, former North Carolina poet laureate, Joseph Barthanti, and other well-recognized authors including Jesse Graves, Darnell Arnoult and Gretchen Moran Laskas.
Shepherdsville, West Virginia: Shepherd University, 2017. 261 pages with photos