Conversations with Ron Rash
Conversations with Ron Rash
Since the publication of Serena in 2008 earned him a nomination for the PEN/Faulkner fiction prize, Ron Rash (b. 1953) has gained attention as one of the South’s finest writers. Rash draws upon his family’s history in Appalachia, where most members have worked with their hands as farmers or millworkers. In the Grit Lit or Rough South genre, Rash maintains a prominent place as a skilled craftsman and triple threat, publishing four collections of poetry, six short story collections, and six novels. Though best known as an Appalachian writer, Rash’s reach has grown to extend well beyond Appalachia and the American South, spreading to an international audience.
Conversations with Ron Rash collects twenty-two interviews with the award-winning author and provides a look into Rash’s writing career from his first collection of short stories, The Night the New Jesus Fell to Earth in 1994 through his 2015 novel, Above the Waterfall. The collection includes four interviews from outside the United States, two of which appear in English for the first time. Spanning sixteen years, these interviews demonstrate the disciplined writing process of an expert writer, Rash’s views of literature on a local and a global scale, his profound respect for the craft of the written word, and his ongoing goal to connect with his readers.
Conversations with Ron Rash offers honest and in-depth profiles of the author. . . . The passion and exactitude of the author is on fine display here in a volume essential for anyone studying Rash’s career and works.
With the inclusion of four interviews from outside the US, this book presents Ron Rash as a writer whose reach extends beyond Appalachia, across the country, and to an international audience.
Mae Miller Claxton is professor at Western Carolina University. She is editor of Conversations with Dorothy Allison and coeditor (with Rain Newcomb) of Conversations with Ron Rash and (with Julia Eichelberger) of Teaching the Works of Eudora Welty: Twenty-First-Century Approaches, all published by University Press of Mississippi. Rain Newcomb is a member of the English faculty at Fond du Lac Tribal and Community College.
