|
|
|
Funding for this project is provided by the Library Services and Technology Act administered by the Institute of Museum and Library Services and the West Virginia Library Commission.
|
Program
Highlights Glimpses from readings ... the little girl who wants to sleep in the barn with the animals ... the divorced woman who now has an extra gravesite .... the dying father whose "mind is like a flapping line of laundry" ... Music performed by Bob Webb - Denise Giardina - (home counties: McDowell, Kanawha) national award-winning novelist. Denise traces historical and theological threads that run from novel to novel. She compares the courage of those who fought for the miners in the West Virginia mine wars with the dilemmas faced by Dietrich Bonnhoeffer in World War II and Henry V in the fifteenth century. Humor, sex, theology, and her run for governor. Glimpses from readings ... a boy watches his dad come in from the mines late at night ... a TV newscaster tries to film southern WV kids during the Poverty War ... a lovely sex scene ... Dietrich Bonnhoeffer agonizing over his decision to return to Nazi Germany -- Music: various - Richard Currey - (home county: Wood) Adult fiction, translated into a dozen languages. In his compelling, deep voice, Richard Currey gives us absorbing, sometimes stunning glimpses of the Vietnam ground war, the West Virginia mine wars, murderers, and traveling musicians. Intense readings, valuable advice to writers. Glimpses from readings ... a miner sitting in his house with a shotgun during the Mine Wars, waiting for the mine guards to come kill him ... a country musician calling his wife from the road, a medic cradling a dying guy on the ground in Vietnam ...Music: John Blisard - Cynthia Rylant - (home county: Raleigh) One of the world’s best-loved children’s writers. Adults will love her too. She reads favorites like When I Was Young in the Mountains, but also other work for older people that shows her irreverent humor and down-to-earth nonconformity. A rare visit with a writer who almost never grants recorded interviews. Glimpses from readings: ... favorite children’s books: scarecrows and relatives, night birds and When I Was Young in the Country. Also writing for older people: a young soldier in WWII who sees his buddy’s head blown off ... a teenager whose mother has lost her mind ... a charming duet with an 8-year-old Tucker County girl ... Music: Robin Kessinger - Keith Maillard - (home county: Ohio) Adult fiction. Probably the sexiest show in the series! Keith teaches at the University of British Columbia in Canada. For his eight published novels, he made up a fictional West Virginia town (Raysburg), modeled on Wheeling. His work is as lively and irreverent as he is. Great advice to writers mixed with stories about early settlers, teenagers hopping a train, an alcoholic stepfather, etc. Glimpses from readings: an outrageously sexy scene of two teenagers hopping a train ... an Irish immigrant rolling down the National Road toward Wheeling ... wonderful advice to writers .... Music: Steve Hill - Jayne Anne Phillips - (home county: Upshur) Adult fiction. National award-winning writer, translated into more than a dozen languages. Fiction that grew out of stories heard in childhood, family events, and personal experience, mixed with intense pieces that are definitely not from her personal experience. First-rate advice about writing. Glimpses from readings: a stripper remembers her early life in Charleston ... a mother and daughter argue about sex ... a daughter follows her father with Alzheimer’s around town, to make sure he doesn’t get lost ... Music: Bob Webb - Sandra Belton - (home county: Raleigh) children’s writer. When Sandra Belton grew up in Beckley, she and her friends packed the library on Saturdays because it was one of the few places black people were treated equally with whites. Much as she loved the library, she knew what books were missing: books about black kids. Now she writes those books, to much national acclaim. A warm, musical visit with a thoughtful person. Glimpses from readings: glimpses of 1950s segregated Beckley ... a little girl looking in vain for books about black kids in the library... segments that could happen to any child: divorce, job loss, combined with specifically African-American segments ... people reminiscing on a neighborhood porch about the time Duke Ellington came to West Virginia, when black people couldn’t stay in hotels. ... Music: Tim Courts - Pinckney Benedict - (home county: Greenbrier) Adult fiction, international award-winner. Stories about people struggling to keep their dignity and humor against big odds, mixed with fast-paced, dark tales of giant hogs and drug lords. Often funny, often violent. A controversial writer who delivers memorable writing advice and talks frankly about his writing and himself. Glimpses from readings: a young man busts a beloved older man out of a nursing home ... a giant, dangerous white hog ... drug lords in southern WV ... a judge’s wife waltzes into a farmhouse and asks to buy a piece of the family furniture ... Music: Ron Sowell - Breece D’j Pancake - (home county: Cabell) Adult fiction. Dark, brilliant stories from the book of his short stories published after he committed suicide. He plowed new territory for Appalachian writers with searing stories about ordinary people coping on the edge. His book attracted international attention. First-rate readings from his stories and letters, mixed with discussion of his work by other WV writers and his biographer. Music: various Glimpses from readings: a bobcat watches a hunter cut open a deer ... a desperate young prostitute sells herself in a river town ... a guy gigs turtles and looks for fossils while his mother sells the farm - Maggie Anderson - (father’s family county: Preston) Poetry. Nationally-praised poet and director of Kent State’s writing program. Advice to poets and charming stories about mid-century Rowlesburg, mixed with lively poetry about many subjects: her family, a photographer taking pictures of West Virginian s, vegetables that dream, black dogs. A treat: the music a Connecticut composer composed to go with her vegetable dream poems. Glimpses from program: a little girl watches a stool, pretending it’s a TV ... a farm wife who cooks and cleans endlessly without a thank you from anyone ... radishes with insomnia ... Music: various - Stephen Coonts - (home county: Upshur) - Adult fiction. A fast-paced, entertaining visit with West Virginia’s best-selling writer. He writes techno-thrillers about international espionage and fighter pilots. Flight of the Intruder, his first book, was made into a movie, and almost all of his books rank on the New York Times best-seller list. Glimpses from readings: a Navy pilot sits in his plane in the night on the flight deck of an aircraft carrier, waiting to be launched out into the dark ... a computer hacker destroys the Red Chinese missile bank ... Music: various - Marc Harshman - (longtime resident: Marshall, now Ohio) - Children’s books, poetry. Marc has lived in West Virginia for over thirty years. He represents the many fine writers who have moved to the state. Marc combines a national reputation as a children’s writer with a talent for storytelling performance. He tells about his early days in West Virginia and offers insightful comments about poetry, politics, and storytelling in West Virginia. Glimpses from readings: ... two kids watch their dad put out a chimney fire in the snow ... a beloved uncle writes wonderful letters, then turns out to be an alcoholic ... strangers who seek shelter at a child’s house in a blizzard create a magical evening ... Music: various - Davis Grubb - (home county: Harrison). Adult fiction. After Night of the Hunter was made into a movie, Davis Grubb became a national literary celebrity. His dark, absorbing stories often involve innocents and children battling danger and dangerous adults. Interviews with him, thanks to the West Virginia Library Commission. Glimpses from readings: a convict posing as a preacher chases two children through the night ... a man buried in a mine collapse eats from his lunch pail as he prepares to die ... Music - various - Mary Lee Settle - (home county: Kanawha). Adult fiction and memoir. West Virginia’s National Book Award winner. In typical energetic fashion, Mary Lee explores the themes of her five-volume Beulah Land quintet that traces several families from Cromwell’s England to the Kanawha Valley. Entertaining glimpses of her research, readings from her memoir of her grandmother Addie. Glimpses: a rebel in Cromwell’s England faces a firing squad ... Mother Jones rallies the miners on Cabin Creek ... in a drunk tank, a guy from the wealthy section of town decks a guy from the creeks...Music: various * Programs may contain adult content or language. Parental discretion advised. |
|
|
