Clay's Quilt is a 2001 novel by Silas House, first published by Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill and reissued by Ballantine/Random House in 2003. The book appeared briefly on the New York Times bestseller list and became a word-of-mouth sleeper hit, especially in the Southern United States. The book was critically acclaimed, was praised by writers such as Lee Smith and Chris Offutt, was featured in USA Today and The New York Times , and led to House being compared to writers such as Larry Brown and being identified as a writer of the "Rough South", [1] a definition subsequent books challenged. The book also resulted in House serving as a commentator for NPR's All Things Considered for the next year. The novel immediately established House as one of the leading writers of the Appalachian region. The book is still widely taught in high schools and universities. After being in print for 17 years by Ballantine Books, a new edition was published by Blair in July 2020 with a new foreword by acclaimed singer-songwriter Tyler Childers, who has often cited [2] the book as an influence on his own writing.
Clay Sizemore is in his mid-twenties and has tired of his living-for-the-weekend lifestyle. Much of his life has been defined by an event from his childhood: at age four he witnessed his mother's murder during a terrible snowstorm. When he meets an attractive fiddler named Alma, he decides that it is time to take control of his own story. There are complications with Alma's recent ex-husband that drive home the theme of cyclical violence. As Clay tries to find out the truth about how and why his mother was killed, he falls into a situation that reveals we all have the capability to be violent, and that we can all choose not to be.
Clay's Quilt gives insight into a misunderstood region, and is one of the few books set in Appalachia that is contemporary to the time in which it was written. House has said this is one of the main reasons he wrote the book, to make up for the lack of literature that shows a nuanced and modern look at Appalachia and the rural South.
The culture of Liberia reflects this nation's diverse ethnicities and long history. Liberia is located in West Africa on the Atlantic Coast.
Appalachia is a geographic region located in the central and southern sections of the Appalachian Mountains of the eastern United States. Its boundaries stretch from the western Catskill Mountains of New York into Pennsylvania, continuing on through the Blue Ridge Mountains and Great Smoky Mountains into northern Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi, with West Virginia being the only state in which the entire state is within the boundaries of Appalachia. In 2021, the region was home to an estimated 26.3 million people, of whom roughly 80% were white.
Harry Eugene Crews was an American novelist, short story writer, and essayist. He often made use of violent, grotesque characters and set them in regions of the Deep South.
Gary James Paulsen was an American writer of children's and young adult fiction, best known for coming-of-age stories about the wilderness. He was the author of more than 200 books and wrote more than 200 magazine articles and short stories, and several plays, all primarily for teenagers. He won the Margaret Edwards Award from the American Library Association in 1997 for his lifetime contribution in writing for teens.
William Larry Brown was an American novelist, non-fiction, and short story writer. He received numerous awards during his lifetime, including the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters award for fiction, the Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Award, and Mississippi's Governor's Award For Excellence in the Arts. Brown was also the first two-time winner of the Southern Book Award for Fiction.
Marilynne Summers Robinson is an American novelist and essayist. Across her writing career, Robinson has received numerous awards, including the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2005, National Humanities Medal in 2012, and the 2016 Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction. In 2016, Robinson was named in Time magazine's list of 100 most influential people. Robinson began teaching at the Iowa Writers' Workshop in 1991 and retired in the spring of 2016.
Roger Price was an American humorist, author and publisher, who created Droodles in the 1950s, followed by his collaborations with Leonard B. Stern on the Mad Libs series. Price and Stern became partners with Larry Sloan in the publishing firm Price Stern Sloan.
The Ringworld Engineers is a 1979 science fiction novel by American writer Larry Niven. It is the first sequel to Niven's Ringworld and was nominated for both the Hugo and Locus Awards in 1981.
The Sea is a 2005 novel by John Banville. His fourteenth novel, it won the 2005 Booker Prize.
Verna Mae Slone was an Appalachian author from Knott County, Kentucky.
Thomas Francis Monteleone is an American science fiction author and horror fiction author.
Silas Dwane House is an American writer best known for his novels. He is also a music journalist, environmental activist, and columnist. His fiction is known for its attention to the natural world, working-class characters, and the plight of the rural place and rural people. House is also known as a representative for LGBTQ Appalachians and Southerners, and is among the most visible LGBTQ people associated with rural America.
Gail Godwin is an American novelist and short story writer. Godwin has written 14 novels, two short story collections, three non-fiction books, and ten libretti. Her primary literary accomplishments are her novels, which have included five best-sellers and three finalists for the National Book Award. Most of her books are realistic fiction novels that follow a character's psychological and intellectual development, often based on themes taken from Godwin's own life.
The History of Love: A Novel is the 2005 novel by the American writer Nicole Krauss.The book was a 2006 finalist for the Orange Prize for Fiction and won the 2008 William Saroyan International Prize for Writing for fiction.
Wild Meat and the Bully Burgers is a Japanese American-Hawaiian adult fiction novel by Lois-Ann Yamanaka. Its tonality is distinctive to that of a local Hawaiian culture in that all the main characters speak in Hawaiian Pidgin. Although it is an adult fiction novel, the plot follows a young Japanese girl throughout her years in middle school. The major themes of the novel include comparing a mother-daughter relationship with a father-daughter one, finding one's identity, and the politics of Japanese Hawaiian culture in a white America.
David T. Wenzel is an illustrator and children's book artist. He is best known for his graphic novel adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit.
The culture of Kentucky is firmly Southern, it is also influenced by Southern Appalachia, blending with the native upper Southern culture in certain areas of the state. The state is known for bourbon and whiskey distilling, tobacco, horse racing, college basketball, and quilts.
John Rice Irwin was an American cultural historian, and founder of the Museum of Appalachia in Norris, Tennessee.
David Joy is an American novelist and short-story writer.
Appalachian folk art is a regional form of folk art based in the Appalachian region in the United States. In an article about the contemporary form of this art, Chuck Rosenak stated, "the definition of folk art is obscure". Folk art is a way to convey the feelings and mannerisms of cultures through handmade visual art and communicates a message to the observer. Though folk art itself was brought to the Americas by Europeans, it has adapted to each region and has cultivated traditions in each region.