Unbroken Circle: Stories of Cultural Diversity in the South
Description
In turbulent times, what we need is possibility, and in this rich gathering of diverse voices, Watts and Smith give us just that. A girl molds clay against her deaf brother�s ears to heal him. A gay man finds his Appalachian clan in a dark world. These are stories and essays about the blues, about poverty, about families lost and made. Unbroken Circle is about broken and unbroken lives, and ultimately, hope. �Karen Salyer McElmurray, author of Surrendered Child.....................One of the goals of Unbroken Circle is to subvert stereotypes�to show that Southern people are not simply shoeless, rural white people. We are a people as varied as the Southern landscape, from the mountains of Appalachia to the deltas of Mississippi to the skyscrapers of Atlanta. We are black, white, Latino, Native American, Middle Eastern, Asian, and multiracial. We are Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, Wiccan, atheist and agnostic. We are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, straight, and questioning. We are urban and rural, old and young, poor and rich, and all points in between. We are all these things, plus more that don�t fit into neat categories. The voices in this collection represent some of the diverse voices of our region, just a few spoonfuls from the giant pot of gumbo that makes up our region. �Julia Watts (Introduction)
Product Details
Price
$18.00
Publisher
Bottom Dog Press
Publish Date
May 15, 2017
Pages
192
Dimensions
6.0 X 9.0 X 0.45 inches | 0.64 pounds
Language
English
Type
Paperback
EAN/UPC
9780933087736
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About the Author
Chris Offutt is the author of the short-story collections Kentucky Straight and Out of the Woods, the novel The Good Brother, and the memoirs The Same River Twice, No Heroes, and My Father, the Pornographer. His work has appeared in Best American Short Stories and Best American Essays, among many other places. He has written screenplays for Weeds, True Blood, and Treme and has received fellowships from the Lannan and Guggenheim foundations.
Charles Dodd White is the author of the novels, A Shelter of Others and Lambs of Men, as well as the story collection, Sinners of Sanction County, published by Bottom Dog Press. He's also co-editor of the Appalachian anthologies, Degrees of Elevation and Appalachia Now, also published by Bottom Dog. He lives in Knoxville, Tennessee where he teaches at Pellissippi State Community College and directs the annual James Agee Conference
Laura Argiri wrote The God in Flight, Random House 1995, published in paperback by Viking Penguin, May 1996, and in its second edition by Lethe Press in 2016. The God is about love, and Guilty Parties is about guilt, from the perspectives of perpetrators, their targets, and an occasional innocent witness or two. She does not encourage people to tell her the worst things they've ever done, but many do, as if they expected her to make use of them. And so she has.
Okey Napier lives in Huntington, WV where he teaches Sociology at Marshall University, Mountwest Community & Technical College, and Ohio University. He is working on his MFA in Creative Writing at West Virginia Wesleyan College and also writing a novel, Make Me Pretty Sissy. Okey is currently touring as his drag persona, Ilene Over, in his one woman show � Rainbow in the Mountains: Queer and Fabulous in Appalachia.
LARRY SMITH is an adjunct associate professor of economics at the University of Waterloo and a recipient of the University of Waterloo's Distinguished Teacher Award. During his longstanding tenure, Smith has taught and counselled more than 23,000 students on the subject of their careers, representing more than 10 percent of UW's alumni. Smith has worked with more than 500 teams of student entrepreneurs, advising them as they have created companies of significant size and success across industries as broad-reaching as communications, software, robotics, entertainment, design and real estate. Smith is also president of Essential Economics Corporation, an economic consulting practice that serves a wide range of public and private clients. "Why You Will Fail to have a Great Career," his TEDx Talk based on his experience counselling students, has been viewed by over six million people.
Julia Watts is the author of fourteen novels and several short story collections in the genres of young adult fiction and lesbian fiction/erotica. Her books are set in her native Appalachia and often depict the lives of LGBTQ people in the Bible Belt. Her novel Finding H.F. (Alyson Press, 2001) won the 2001 Lambda Literary Award in the children/young adult category. Her novel, Quiver, set in rural Tennessee, received a rare "Perfect 10 Rating" from VOYA Magazine, and, along with several of her other novels, was selected for the American Library Association's Rainbow List. Her novel Finding H.F. (Alyson Press, 2001) won the Lambda Literary Award in the Children's/Young Adult category, and her historical YA novel Secret City (Bella Books, 2013) was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award and a winner of a Golden Crown Literary Award. In 2020 Watts was given the Tennessee Library Association's Intellectual Freedom Award. She lives in Knoxville and is working on a PhD in Children's and Young Adult Literature at The University of Tennessee.
Reviews
The writing gathered here is the result of some deep questioning and brave sharing. Whether in personal nonfiction or projected storytelling, the writing witnesses life as it�s lived today. Character and voice are paramount, as are theme and style. These are real people caught in authentic situations and struggles for acceptance and caring. In a country where division and judgment are so prominent, they open the circle of acceptance. As Ram Dass declares, the circle is a wonderful image and concept, only keep it expanding. We thank these writers and welcome you reading it as part of our unbroken circle. �Larry Smith (Introduction)
