This is a great read! I didn’t know this history and am thrilled to see Sharon McCrumb getting attention. I took a class on Appalachian Literature from her at Virginia Tech in the late 1980s and have been a fan ever since.
I’ve studied, sung and played traditional music for over fifty years now. When I first encountered Sharon McCrumb’s novels I was drawn in by their being set in the place and culture of Appalachia, but what kept me reading was her ability to spin a story. Plus, they’re just so hard to put down and so much fun to read!
I'm by no means a scholar in this area, but I'm enough of a nerd that I named my dog after Bascom Lamar Lunsford. I am absolutely going to have to learn more about Katherine Jackson French!
You have a bona fide Sharyn McCrumb fan girl here. My favorites:
The Unquiet Grave
King's Mountain
She Walks These Hills
The Songcatcher
She is also fun to follow on Facebook. She has inspired me to work on my family history. In fact, it was an article in Writers Digest that I discovered her, in the 1990s. McCrumb documents everything meticulously.
Most of all, Sharyn McCrumb is one of the best storytellers I have ever read.
I desperately want to go to these festivals! Thank you for this awesome article!
This is a really neat thing to do and I would like to suggest that the appeal of your work might be enhanced even more with the occasional video link to Appalachian musical performances of different sorts.
I went to Berea for a year. It seemed the sort of place where political or even more venal considerations might prompt them to suppress even their best students' best work, despite the abundant promotion they normally do.
I don't know to what extent it happened. It just seemed possible...When I was there they were grading on the curve. The atmosphere was competitive and hostile. (Except, I'm not sure why, in Spanish class...but the gym and music classes were as hostile as the major-subject ones.) In the psychology department there was a lot of talk about preventing the "feminization" of the field; my adviser seemed the most hostile of all the teachers, to me, individually.
This is a great read! I didn’t know this history and am thrilled to see Sharon McCrumb getting attention. I took a class on Appalachian Literature from her at Virginia Tech in the late 1980s and have been a fan ever since.
save the music! it’s wonderful!
I’ve studied, sung and played traditional music for over fifty years now. When I first encountered Sharon McCrumb’s novels I was drawn in by their being set in the place and culture of Appalachia, but what kept me reading was her ability to spin a story. Plus, they’re just so hard to put down and so much fun to read!
Yes!
I'm by no means a scholar in this area, but I'm enough of a nerd that I named my dog after Bascom Lamar Lunsford. I am absolutely going to have to learn more about Katherine Jackson French!
You have a bona fide Sharyn McCrumb fan girl here. My favorites:
The Unquiet Grave
King's Mountain
She Walks These Hills
The Songcatcher
She is also fun to follow on Facebook. She has inspired me to work on my family history. In fact, it was an article in Writers Digest that I discovered her, in the 1990s. McCrumb documents everything meticulously.
Most of all, Sharyn McCrumb is one of the best storytellers I have ever read.
I desperately want to go to these festivals! Thank you for this awesome article!
This is a really neat thing to do and I would like to suggest that the appeal of your work might be enhanced even more with the occasional video link to Appalachian musical performances of different sorts.
The film The Song Catcher .
Very interesting!
I went to Berea for a year. It seemed the sort of place where political or even more venal considerations might prompt them to suppress even their best students' best work, despite the abundant promotion they normally do.
Hi. Can you talk more about how promising writers were suppressed at Berea? I have never thought of Berea as repressive.
I don't know to what extent it happened. It just seemed possible...When I was there they were grading on the curve. The atmosphere was competitive and hostile. (Except, I'm not sure why, in Spanish class...but the gym and music classes were as hostile as the major-subject ones.) In the psychology department there was a lot of talk about preventing the "feminization" of the field; my adviser seemed the most hostile of all the teachers, to me, individually.
Yes!