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  “Listen Here is a virtual key to the treasury of writing on Appalachia by the women whose knowledge of the region stands out most prominently. Nowhere else can you find in one volume so much biographical and bibliographical information on more than a hundred creators of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and drama from the Southern mountains. This is a long-needed resource that will be indispensable from the day of its publication. I hope and expect it will become a primary reference that steers readers not only to the most famous women writers of Appalachia, but to the lesser-known ones as well.”

  —John Egerton, author of Generations: An American Family

  “This is the culmination of long dedication and a big vision and has been much anticipated. We all owe Sandy Ballard and Pat Hudson huge thanks for compiling such a compelling and necessary addition to our collective literature.”

  —Jerry W. Williamson, Appalachian State University

  “It is common knowledge that women have been instrumental in shaping genres and creating traditions in Appalachian writing for well over a century and a quarter, but when their contribution is viewed comprehensively, a collective genius, which is not to deny any individual genius, shines through, creating not merely surprise but a shock of recognition…of the range and quality of their writing. Remedies of all kinds form a substantial part of Appalachian folklore. Listen Here is also a remedy, not for aches and pains, but for oversight or indifference of much of our cultural and literary heritage. The store of jewels in our own house, we come to realize in reading it, is greater than many of us ever realized. The symbol for the selections here is a garden with diversity and beauty for many tastes. Here is the perfect illustration of the flowering of Appalachian writing where the blooming itself has not been late, but only the critical recognition of it.”

  —Robert J. Higgs, East Tennessee State University

  LISTEN HERE

  Women Writing in Appalachia

  EDITED BY SANDRA L. BALLARD AND PATRICIA L. HUDSON

  THE UNIVERSITY PRESS OF KENTUCKY

  Copyright © 2003 by The University Press of Kentucky

  Scholarly publisher for the Commonwealth,

  serving Bellarmine University, Berea College, Centre

  College of Kentucky, Eastern Kentucky University, The Filson Historical Society, Georgetown College, Kentucky Historical Society, Kentucky State University, Morehead State University, Murray State University, Northern Kentucky University, Transylvania University, University of Kentucky, University of Louisville, and Western Kentucky University.

  All rights reserved.

  Editorial and Sales Offices: The University Press of Kentucky

  663 South Limestone Street, Lexington, Kentucky 40508-4008

  www.kentuckypress.com

  Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available from the Library of Congress.

  ISBN 978-0-8131-9066-2 (pbk: alk. paper)

  This book is printed on acid-free paper meeting the requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence in Paper for Printed Library Materials.

  Manufactured in the United States of America.

  Member of the Association of

  American University Presses

  Because this page cannot legibly accommodate all the copyright notices, the notices appear at the end of the book as an extension of the copyright page.

  CONTENTS

  Chronology of Works

  Acknowledgements

  About the Editors

  Introduction

  SHEILA KAY ADAMS

  The Easter Frock, from Come Go Home With Me

  DOROTHY ALLISON

  from Bastard Out of Carolina

  LISA ALTHER

  from Five Minutes in Heaven

  MAGGIE ANDERSON

  Ontological

  Long Story

  Sonnet for Her Labor

  A Place with Promise

  ANNE W. ARMSTRONG

  from This Day and Time

  HARRIETTE SIMPSON ARNOW

  from Hunter's Horn

  from Seedtime on the Cumberland

  The First Ride

  SYLVIA TRENT AUXIER

  Neighbors

  When Grandmother Wept

  Cicada's Song

  Someday in a Wood

  The Stair

  MARILOU AWIAKTA

  Women Die Like Trees

  When Earth Becomes an “It”

  Anorexia Bulimia Speaks from the Grave

  A Time to Reweave, from Selu

  A Time to Study Law, from Selu

  Out of Ashes Peace Will Rise

  ARTIE ANN BATES

  Belinda, Our Tremendous Gift

  FRANCES COURTENAY BAYLOR

  from Behind the Blue Ridge

  SUE ELLEN BRIDGERS

  from Sara Will

  FLORENCE COPE BUSH

  from Dorie: Woman of the Mountains

  KATHRYN STRIPLING BYER

  Wildwood Flower

  Bittersweet

  Lineage

  Easter

  Mountain Time

  CANDIE CARAWAN

  from Sing for Freedom

  JO CARSON

  40, from Stories I Ain't Told Nobody Yet

  49, from Stories I Ain't Told Nobody Yet

  from Maybe, The Last of the ‘Waltz Across Texas’ and Other Stories

  from Daytrips

  REBECCA CAUDILL

  from My Appalachia

  LILLIE D. CHAFFIN

  Second Christmas

  Spending the Night

  Discipline

  The Glad Gardener

  LOLETTA CLOUSE

  from Wilder

  ANN COBB

  The Boy

  Hospitality

  The Widow Man

  Kivers

  LISA COFFMAN

  In Envy of Migration

  Maps

  About the Pelvis

  Tick

  AMY TIPTON CORTNER

  The Hillbilly Vampire

  The Vampire Ethnographer

  No Minority

  LOU V.P. CRABTREE

  Homer-Snake, from Sweet Hollow

  Sister

  Sports Widow

  OLIVE TILFORD DARGAN [FIELDING BURKE]

  from Call Home the Heart

  DORIS DAVENPORT

  Country

  for Dr. Josefina Garcia & the “Tissue Committee”

  zora neale

  REBECCA HARDING DAVIS

  from Life in the Iron Mills

  ANN DEAGON

  Giving the Sun

  The Hole

  Twins

  Poetics South

  In a Time of Drought

  Broadside

  ANGELYN DEBORD

  from Praise House

  ANNIE DILLARD

  from Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

  HILDA DOWNER

  This is what history is

  A woman is segmented as an ant

  Every open space fills with sky

  MURIEL MILLER DRESSLER

  Appalachia

  Elegy For Jody

  WILL ALLEN DROMGOOLE

  from Fiddling His Way to Fame, The Heart of Old Hickory

  WILMA DYKEMAN

  from Return the Innocent Earth

  from The French Broad

  SARAH BARNWELL ELLIOTT

  from The Durket Sperret

  SIDNEY SAYLOR FARR

  from More than Moonshine

  Granny Brock

  Mountains Fill Up the Night

  Appalachia, Where are your Hills?

  NIKKY FINNEY

  from Queen Ida's Hair-Doing House of Waves, Heartwood

  Irons At Her Feet

  LUCY FURMAN

  from Sight to the Blind

  DENISE GIARDINA
r />   from Storming Heaven

  from The Unquiet Earth

  JANICE HOLT GILES

  from Hannah Fowler

  NIKKI GIOVANNI

  Griots, from Racism 101

  Knoxville, Tennessee

  Revolutionary Dreams

  A Poem Off Center

  GAIL GODWIN

  from A Southern Family

  CONNIE JORDAN GREEN

  from The War at Home

  VIRGINIA HAMILTON

  from M. C. Higgins the Great

  PAULETTA HANSEL

  Writing Lessons (I.)

  She

  Writing Lessons (II.)

  To her mother, lying in state

  CORRA HARRIS

  from A Circuit Rider's Wife

  MILDRED HAUN

  from The Hawk's Done Gone

  ELLESA CLAY HIGH

  from Past Titan Rock

  MARY BOZEMAN HODGES

  Ms. Ida Mae, from Tough Customers and Other Stories

  GLORIA HOUSTON

  from My Great-Aunt Arizona

  LEE HOWARD

  Momma's Letter

  The Last Unmined Vein

  MARY JOHNSTON

  from The Long Roll

  MARY HARRIS “MOTHER” JONES

  from The Autobiography of Mother Jones

  JANE WILSON JOYCE

  Life and Art in East Tennessee

  Hooked Album Quilt, 1870

  MAY JUSTUS

  Weather Rhymes

  EDITH SUMMERS KELLEY

  from Weeds

  LEATHA KENDRICK

  from No Place Like Home

  The Familiar Level

  Refusing a Spinal

  BARBARA KINGSOLVER

  from The Bean Trees

  from Prodigal Summer

  LISA KOGER

  from Extended Learning, Farlanburg Stories

  CATHERINE LANDIS

  from Some Days There's Pie

  LILY MAY LEDFORD

  from Coon Creek Girl

  GRACE LUMPKIN

  from To Make My Bread

  GEORGE ELLA LYON

  from With A Hammer for My Heart

  Where I'm From

  Rings

  Salvation

  Growing Light

  LINDA PARSONS MARION

  Mulberries

  To My Daughter Going Off to College

  Welcome to the Other Side

  Good Luck Charm

  CATHERINE MARSHALL

  from Christy

  BELINDA ANN MASON

  The Gifts of the Spirit

  KATHY L. MAY

  Rain

  Saved

  Ascension

  TRUDA WILLIAMS MCCOY

  from The McCoys

  SHARYN MCCRUMB

  from The Songcatcher

  JEANNE MCDONALD

  from Up the Hill toward Home

  KAREN SALYER MCELMURRAY

  from Mother of the Disappeared: An Appalachian Birth Mother's Journey

  LLEWELLYN MCKERNAN

  Many Waters

  For My Grandmother Who Knows How

  The Hollow

  Mother Milking

  Music

  IRENE MCKINNEY

  Twilight in West Virginia: Six O'Clock Mine Report

  Deep Mining

  Sunday Morning, 1950

  The Only Portrait of Emily Dickinson

  Visiting My Gravesite: Talbott Churchyard, West Virginia

  LOUISE MCNEILL

  The Other Woman

  Aubade to Fear (Heavy with Child)

  Hill Daughter

  Arrow Grasses by Greenbrier River

  from The Milkweed Ladies

  JANE MERCHANT

  Lanterns and Lamps

  First Plowing in the Hills

  EMMA BELL MILES

  from The Spirit of the Mountains

  HEATHER ROSS MILLER

  from The Edge of the Woods

  Seventh Grades

  Breadstuff

  JANICE TOWNLEY MOORE

  All Those Nights

  Under The Earth

  The Way Back

  MARIJO MOORE

  Story is a Woman

  Solidarity in the Night

  Ahlawe Usv’ Tsigesvgi

  Rumors, from Red Woman With Backward Eyes

  MARY NOAILLES MURFREE

  from In the Tennessee Mountains

  ELAINE FOWLER PALENCIA

  Briers, from Brier Country: Stories from the Blue Valley

  JAYNE ANNE PHILLIPS

  from Machine Dreams

  from Motherkind

  LYNN POWELL

  Nativity

  Echocardiogram

  The Calling

  BARBARA PRESNELL

  In the Kitchen We String Beans

  Clarissa and the Second Coming

  When You Lose a Child

  Snake Dreams

  RITA SIMS QUILLEN

  July 18, 1966

  Woman Writer

  I Used To Be A Teacup

  Discovered

  How Do You Remember Him?

  JEAN RITCHIE

  from Singing Family of the Cumberlands

  ELIZABETH MADOX ROBERTS

  from The Time of Man

  ANNE NEWPORT ROYALL

  from Sketches of History, Life, and Manners, in the United States

  CYNTHIA RYLANT

  from Missing May

  BETTIE SELLERS

  Pink

  Mornings, Sheba Combs Her Hair

  Liza's Monday

  The Morning of the Red-Tailed Hawk

  All On A Summer's Afternoon

  Legacy For Rachel

  MARY LEE SETTLE

  from Addie

  from The Killing Ground

  ANNE SHELBY

  Why I Write

  Fat Sestina

  Spellcheck

  MURIEL EARLEY SHEPPARD

  from Cabins in the Laurel

  BETSY SHOLL

  Appalachian Winter

  ELLEN HARVEY SHOWELL

  from Our Mountain

  BENNIE LEE SINCLAIR

  Homecoming

  Kathy

  My Father. His Rabbits.

  Backwoods Haiku

  VERNA MAE SLONE

  from What My Heart Wants to Tell

  BARBARA SMITH

  Bad News

  And This Is The Way To Be Poor

  The Language of Poetry

  EFFIE WALLER SMITH

  Memories of Home

  LEE SMITH

  from Saving Grace

  JANE STUART

  Cycles from Transparencies

  Where Stuarts Lie

  Roots

  Composition

  ADRIANA TRIGIANI

  from Big Stone Gap

  DANA WILDSMITH

  Economy

  New Poor

  A Dry Spring

  Our Bodies Remember

  Force

  SYLVIA WILKINSON

  from Shadow of the Mountain

  MEREDITH SUE WILLIS

  My Boy Elroy, from In the Mountains of America

  LEIGH ALLISON WILSON

  from The Raising, From the Bottom Up

  MARY ELIZABETH WITHERSPOON

  from The Morning Cool

  More Women Writing in Appalachia

  A Selected Bibliography

  Index of Titles and Authors

  Permissions

  CHRONOLOGY OF WORKS

  ANNE NEWPORT ROYALL

  from Sketches of History, Life, and Manners…(1826)

  REBECCA HARDING DAVIS

  from Life in the Iron Mills (1861)

  MARY NOAILLES MURFREE

  from In the Tennessee Mountains (1884)

  FRANCES COURTENAY BAYLOR

  from Behind the Blue Ridge (1887)

  WILL ALLEN DROMGOOLE

  from The Heart of Old Hickory (1895)

  SARAH BARNWELL ELLIOTT

  from The Durket Sperret (1898)


  EMMA BELL MILES

  from The Spirit of the Mountains (1905)

  CORRA HARRIS

  from A Circuit Rider's Wife (1910)

  MARY JOHNSTON

  from The Long Roll (1911)

  LUCY FURMAN

  from Sight to the Blind (1914)

  ANN COBB

  from Kinfolks: Kentucky Mountain Rhymes (1922)

  EDITH SUMMERS KELLEY

  from Weeds (1923)

  MARY HARRIS “MOTHER” JONES

  from The Autobiography of Mother Jones (1925)

  ELIZABETH MADOX ROBERTS

  from The Time of Man (1926)

  ANNE W. ARMSTRONG

  from This Day and Time (1930)

  OLIVE TILFORD DARGAN [FIELDING BURKE]

  from Call Home the Heart (1932)

  GRACE LUMPKIN

  from To Make My Bread (1932)

  MURIEL EARLEY SHEPPARD

  from Cabins in the Laurel (1935)

  MILDRED HAUN

  from The Hawk's Done Gone (1940)

  HARRIETTE SIMPSON ARNOW

  from Hunter's Horn (1949)

  SYLVIA TRENT AUXIER

  from Love-Vine (1953)

  JANE MERCHANT

  from The Greatest of These (1954)

  WILMA DYKEMAN

  from The French Broad (1955)

  JEAN RITCHIE

  from Singing Family of the Cumberlands (1955)

  JANICE HOLT GILES

  from Hannah Fowler (1956)

  HARRIETTE SIMPSON ARNOW

  from Seedtime on the Cumberland (1960)

  HEATHER ROSS MILLER

  from The Edge of the Woods (1964)

  REBECCA CAUDILL

  from My Appalachia: A Reminiscence (1966)

  MAY JUSTUS

  from The Complete Peddler's Pack (1966)

  CATHERINE MARSHALL

  from Christy (1967)

  JANE STUART

  from Eyes of the Mole (1967)

  SYLVIA TRENT AUXIER

  from With Thorn and Stone: New and Selected Poems (1968)

  MARY HARRIS “MOTHER” JONES

  from The Autobiography of Mother Jones (1925)

  BENNIE LEE SINCLAIR

  from Little Chicago Suite (1971)

  LOUISE MCNEILL

  from Paradox Hill (1972)

  MARY ELIZABETH WITHERSPOON

  from The Morning Cool (1972)

  WILMA DYKEMAN

  from Return the Innocent Earth (1973)

  JANE STUART

  from White Barn (1973)

  LILLIE D. CHAFFIN

  from 8th Day, 13th Moon (1974)

  ANN DEAGON

  from Poetics South (1974)

  ANNIE DILLARD

  from Pilgrim at Tinker Creek (1974)

  VIRGINIA HAMILTON

  from M.C. Higgins the Great (1974)

  ANN DEAGON

  from Women and Children First (1976)

  TRUDA WILLIAMS MCCOY

  from The McCoys (1976)

  MURIEL MILLER DRESSLER

  from Appalachia (1977)

  SYLVIA WILKINSON

  from Shadow of the Mountain (1977)

  MARILOU AWIAKTA