Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ

I just returned from a week-long nerd-summer-camp-dream called The Appalachian Writer’s Conference held the first week of August at the Hindman Settlement School in Hindman, KY. It was a-mazing.

I didn’t speak much with the star pupil to come out of this workshop, Silas House, but I watched him from a short distance over the week. He’s not a big man, but boy does he have an enormous voice, both on the page and out loud. He read from his latest work, a novel in letters between two young people, one living in the mountains of Appalachia and one living as the daughter of recent immigrants in New York City (Same Sun Here, co-written with Neela Vaswani).

His debut novel, Clay’s Quilt, was work-shopped at this conference. And it’s fabulous. I’m fresh off the last page and want to read it again. The writing is deeply felt, so moving, so fresh, so easy on the eye and ear but hard on the heart, like all good writing ought to be. The story is of humble origins: boy meets girl, boy gets girl, conflict arises, boy triumphs. Scenes of drunken honkytonks and poker melt into images of cornbread burning in an oven while the couple who stirred up the batter are stirring up the dust on the kitchen floor. And while I’d love to tell you it is elegant, what I have to say is that it is brutally beautiful. House was generous with his time and ear during the writer’s conference; I saw him commune with writers of every level and aspiration with an equally keen expression. This is why I love getting to know the artists behind this magic; House’s book is so alive beneath my fingers now that I’ve heard him speak with his own brilliant, beautiful, tender voice.

� Edit �