It’s easy to understand why Rhonda Browning White’s debut novel, Filling the Big Empty (Redhawk Publications 2024) was shortlisted for the 2022 Neilson Prize. The novel is a tour-de-force, relentlessly examining environmental issues in Appalachia. While never losing focus on a young couple’s relationship, the story drops readers into the horrors of mountaintop removal to extract coal, the […]
“Honey from the Lion” and “Allegheny Front,” by Matthew Neill Null
November 17, 2016 by Leave a Comment
Reviewed by Donna Meredith The land itself and male characters dominate the early works of West Virginia author Matthew Neill Null. They include the literary novel Honey from the Lion (Lookout Books, 2015) and a short story collection, Allegheny Front (Sarabande Books, 2016), which won the Mary McCarthy Prize in Short Fiction. If there is […]
Allen Mendenhall Interviews Robert J. Ernst, author of “The Inside War”
November 28, 2014 by 1 Comment
APM: Thanks for taking the time to sit down for this interview, Bob. Your novel The Inside War is about an Appalachian mountain family during the Civil War. How long have you been interested in the Civil War? RJE: I have had an interest in the Civil War for many years. Specifically, the effect of […]
“The Sheltering,” by Mark Powell
November 24, 2014 by 1 Comment
Reviewed by Sam Slaughter There is no need to fear the reaper here. In Mark Powell’s fourth novel, the author who has been called one of the best Appalachian writers of his generation proves that his home turf is not the only place he can write about. The Sheltering is a story of a drone […]