New Releases by James Still

James Still left eastern Kentucky for Europe in 1941 after enlisting in the US Army during World War II, leaving behind a recently published, semi-autobiographical work of fiction, On Troublesome Creek. Even as he developed a broader worldview, his work continued to draw from the agrarian and regional sources of life in the Cumberland Plateau that supported the American war effort. Like the riverbeds and creeks he so often evoked, Still reminds readers of the local and regional founts that they were fighting for in the century's second global war. The "Dean of Appalachian Literature," James Still grew up in Alabama before settling down in Knott County, Kentucky, in the early 1930s. In On Troublesome Creek, he describes the ebbs and flows of Appalachian living while celebrating the culture defined by family, self-sufficiency, and hard work. The colloquial dialogue brings to life a community attached to the land on which they had lived for generations and the victuals and rituals that kept their world in motion amidst uncertainty.

First published in 1937, Hounds on the Mountain evokes James Still's personal experiences of eastern Kentucky through reflective folk poems describing Appalachian mountain life from birth through death. Written during the Great Depression, the collection emphasizes a collective reliance on the earth and the primacy of nature that Still observed from the seclusion of his thirty-acre home in Knott County, Kentucky. Still, who became known as the "Dean of Appalachian Literature," describes the changing landscape of his community as a tale of personal and environmental erosion. As the poet pleads for his readers to better protect this fragile ecosphere, he plants the seeds for his rise to literary eminence. Still's focus on the self-made authenticity of regional community artisans also reminded American readers during the Great Depression that local economies needed support, the same as those at the national and global levels. Hounds on the Mountain allows today's audiences to appreciate Still's first published book as both literature and as a treasured cultural symbol of Appalachian life then and now.

The people of the Kentucky mountains and the southern Appalachians preserved a language alive with colorful turns of phrase and whimsical wit and for their amusement they created a rich vein of oral lore—songs, tales, and games. James Still presents a varied and entertaining collection of riddles, whimsies, and verbal pranks, gathered through his long association with the mountain people of eastern Kentucky. This book includes in one volume two earlier books—Way Down Yonder on Troublesome Creek and The Wolfpen Rusties—that have been unavailable for several years. It contains the complete text of the original editions, including Still's explanatory notes for archaic or obscure expressions. Also included are the original lively illustrations by the noted artist Janet McCaffery.

James Still first achieved national recognition in the 1930s as a poet. Although he is better known today as a writer of fiction, it is his poetry that many of his essential images, such as the "mighty river of earth," first found expression. Yet much of his poetry remains out of print or difficult to find. From the Mountain, From the Valley collects all of Still's poems, including several never before published, and corrects editorial mistakes that crept into previous collections. The poems are presented in chronological order, allowing the reader to trace the evolution of Still's voice. Throughout, his language is fresh and vigorous and his insight profound. His respect for people and place never sounds sentimental or dated. Ted Olson's introduction recounts Still's early literary career and explores the poetic origins of his acclaimed lyrical prose. Still himself has contributed the illuminating autobiographical essay "A Man Singing to Himself," which will appeal to every lover of his work. James Still, the first poet laureate of Kentucky, recipient of two Guggenheim Fellowships and many other awards and honors, is the author of numerous works, including his masterful novel River of Earth. Ted Olson, associate professor of Appalachian studies and English at East Tennessee State University, is the author of Blue Ridge Folklife and the editor of CrossRoads: A Southern Culture Annual.

First published in 1940, James Still's masterful novel has become a classic. It is the story, seen through the eyes of a boy, of three years in the life of his family and their kin. He sees his parents pulled between the meager farm with its sense of independence and the mining camp with its uncertain promise of material prosperity. In his world privation, violence, and death are part of everyday life, accepted and endured. Yet it is a world of dignity, love, and humor, of natural beauty which Still evokes in sharp, poetic images. No writer has caught more effectively the vividness of mountain speech or shown more honestly the trials and joys of mountain life.

In language both spare and colorful, sure in its command of Appalachian dialect and poetic in its evocation of mountain settings, James Still's stories reveal the lives of his people -- lives of privation and struggle, lived with honesty as well as humor. With a foreword by Cleanth Brooks and an afterword by the author, The Run for the Elbertas features thirteen stories from one of America's masters of the short story. Enjoyable and enriching, Still's stories sparkle with wisdom and joy.

James Still (1906–2001) remains one of the most beloved and important writers of Appalachian literature. Best known for his acclaimed novel River of Earth (1940), the Alabama native and adopted Kentuckian left an enduring legacy of novels, stories, and poems during his nearly seventy-year career. The Hills Remember: The Complete Short Stories of James Still honors the late writer by collecting all of Still's short stories, including those from On Troublesome Creek (1941), Pattern of a Man and Other Stories (1976), and The Run for the Elbertas (1980), as well as twelve prose pieces originally published as short stories and later incorporated into River of Earth. Also included are several lesser-known stories and ten that were previously unpublished. Recognized as significant short fiction in his day—many of his stories initially appeared in The Atlantic and The Saturday Evening Post and were included in The O. Henry Memorial Award Stories and The Best American Short Stories collections—Still's short stories, while often overshadowed in recent years by his novels and poetry, are among his most enduring literary works. Editor Ted Olson's introduction offers a reassessment of Still's short fiction within the contexts of the author's body of work and within Appalachian and American literature. Compiling all of James Still's compelling and varied short stories in one volume, The Hills Remember is a testament to a master writer.

Celebrated as the "Dean of Appalachian Literature," James Still has won the appreciation of audiences in Appalachia and beyond for more than seventy years. The author of the classics River of Earth (1940) and The Wolfpen Poems (1986), Still is known for his careful prose construction and for the poetry of his meticulous, rhythmic style. Upon his death, however, one manuscript remained unpublished. Still's friends, family, and fellow writer Silas House will now deliver this story to readers, having assembled and refined the manuscript to prepare it for publication. Chinaberry, named for the ranch that serves as the centerpiece of the story, is Still's last and perhaps greatest contribution to American literature. Chinaberry follows the adventures of a young boy as he travels to Texas from Alabama in search of work on a cotton farm. Upon arriving, he discovers the ranch of Anson and Lurie Winters, a young couple whose lives are defined by hard work, family, and a tragedy that haunts their past. Still's entrancing narrative centers on the boy's experience at the ranch under Anson's watchful eye and Lurie's doting care, highlighting the importance of home, whether it is defined by people or a place. In this celebration of the art of storytelling, Still captures a time and place that are gone forever and introduces the reader to an unforgettable cast of characters, illustrating the impact that one person can have on another. A combination of memoir and imagination, truth and fiction, Chinaberry is a work of art that leaves the reader in awe of Still's mastery of language and thankful for the lifetime of wisdom that manifests itself in his work.

"A Long Bridge Over Deep Waters passionately and compassionately wrestles with the question: "How does faith both unite and divide us?" and explores the often invisibility of faith, how we make unconscious assumptions about one other based on religion, and how often those assumptions are wrong. Inspired by oral histories, community events, and the circular structure of Schnitzler's play La Ronde, the play's 10 scenes include a Native American woman who teaches ESL to a class of immigrant senior citizens; two astronauts in crisis far away from home and searching for common ground; a man who meets the woman who received his mother's transplanted heart; and a journalist who interviews a family whose son has been killed in Iraq. A Long Bridge Over Deep Waters traces a joyous, restless and surprising path through a wide-open spiritual and American landscape. It is both intimate and epic--an expansive panorama that stages an interlocking chain of unexpected encounters between contemporary communities of faith. This play was the final play in Los Angeles-based Cornerstone Theater Company's nationally acclaimed four-year Faith Based Theater Cycle." -- Publisher's website.

Winner of AATE's Distinguished Play Award and originally produced at The Kennedy Center, Amber Waves focuses children in a family struggling to hold on to their farm and each other. This acclaimed one act about children in a struggling farm family is now available in a full length version that builds on the emotional strengths of the shorter play.

A compilation of Mother Goose rhymes as collected from the Appalachian region oral tradition.

Riddles and witticisms collected by the author from the people of the Kentucky mountains and southern Appalachians and previously presented in two volumes: Way Down Yonder on Troublesome Creek and The Wolfpen Rusties. Includes explanatory notes.

In this Appalachian variant of the traditional tale, Jack trades his old cow to a gypsy for three beans that are guaranteed to feed him his entire life.

"First published in 1976, with a 2001 afterword by Wendell Berry. James Still was born on Double Creek in Alabama, one of ten children. For most of his life he lived in a log house at the forks of Troublesome and Wolfpen creeks in Knott County, Kentucky. The unique native dialect of the Kentucky mountains informs the language of all his stories. "Not many writers have been able to concentrate so much power into a few pages. When you look up from `The Nest' or `The Scrape,' you find the room filled with afterimages ... Because, perhaps, of its artistic integrity this body of work never exploits or condescends to its subject, a region that has been condescended to and exploited almost by convention"--Wendell Berry."--Amazon.

With illustrations by Paul Brett Johnson Sporty Creek is a series of short stories set in the Kentucky hills. Narrated by a young boy (a cousin of the narrator of Still's classic novel River of Earth), the book tells the story of his family during the Great Depression. With work in the coal mines sporadic, they move from place to place, trying to earn a living the best they can. The story is told with gentleness and humor.