Ron Rash an American poet, short story writer and novelist, is the Parris Distinguished Professor in Appalachian Cultural Studies at Western Carolina University

Western Carolina University

Western Carolina University is a coeducational public university located in Cullowhee, North Carolina, United States. The university is a constituent campus of the University of North Carolina system....

. Rash was born in Chester, South Carolina

Chester, South Carolina

Chester is a small city in Chester County, South Carolina, United States. The population was 6,476 at the 2000 census and a center urban cluster population of 11,140...

, in 1953, grew up in Boiling Springs, North Carolina

Boiling Springs, North Carolina

Boiling Springs is a town in Cleveland County, North Carolina, in the United States. As of the 2010 census, the town population was 4,647. It is home to Gardner-Webb University. The Broad River runs along the south of the township, where the Broad River Greenway is located, providing recreational...

, and is a graduate of Gardner-Webb University

Gardner-Webb University

Gardner–Webb University is a private university located west of Charlotte in Boiling Springs, North Carolina, USA. The school has a total of 14 academic departments offering 45 major fields of study. Among the most popular of the school's 39 undergraduate majors are those in business , education ,...

 and Clemson University

Clemson University

Clemson University is an American public, coeducational, land-grant, sea-grant, research university located in Clemson, South Carolina, United States....

. In 1994 he published his first book, a collection of short stories titled The Night the New Jesus Fell to Earth. Since then, Rash has published three collections of poetry, three short story collections, and four novels, all to wide critical acclaim and several awards and honors. Rash's poems and stories have appeared in more than 100 magazines and journals over the years. With each new book, Rash has confirmed his position as a central and significant Appalachian writer alongside well-established names like Fred Chappell

Fred Chappell

Fred Davis Chappell is an author and poet. He retired after 40 years as an English professor at University of North Carolina at Greensboro. He was the Poet Laureate of North Carolina from 1997-2002...

, Lee Smith, and Robert Morgan. Serena, Rash's latest release, has received favorable reviews nationwide and was a 2009 PEN/Faulkner Award Finalist.

Poetry

• Eureka Mill (1998)
  • interweaves his family's personal migration from Buncombe County, NC farms with the broader portrait of mill life outside Chester, South Carolina
    Chester, South Carolina
    Chester is a small city in Chester County, South Carolina, United States. The population was 6,476 at the 2000 census and a center urban cluster population of 11,140...
    
    
• Among the Believers (2000)
• Raising the Dead (2002)
  • Deals with loss and displacement as a result of the flooding of Jocassee Valley, S.C.

Short story collections

• The Night The New Jesus Fell to Earth and Other Stories from Cliffside, North Carolina (1994)
• Casualties (2000)
• Chemistry and Other Stories (2007)
  • Thirteen short stories, eight of which were previously published in Casualties ("Chemistry," "Last Rite," "Not Waving But Drowning," "Overtime," "Cold Harbor", "Honesty", "Dangerous Love," "The Projectionist's Wife,"). Also includes the O. Henry Prize Winner "Speckled Trout" as well as "Pemberton's Bride," a story that gives a taste of Rash's forthcoming novel.
• Burning Bright (2010)

Novels

• One Foot in Eden (2002)
  • Fleshes out the characters and themes of Raising the Dead. It tells the story of a community displaced disguised as a murder mystery and imbued with Rash’s poetic language.
• Saints at the River (2004)
  • About a South Carolina community torn over the issue of environmentalism.
• The World Made Straight
  The World Made Straight
  The World Made Straight is a 2006 novel by Ron Rash.-Plot introduction:In 1970s Western North Carolina, a young man stumbles across a grove of marijuana, sees an opportunity to make some easy money, and steps into the jaws of a bear trap...
  
  (2006)
  • Both a coming-of-age story set in the 1970s Appalachia and a meditation on the role of the past in the present, in this case a Civil War massacre that has divided Madison County, N.C
    Madison County, North Carolina
    -Demographics:As of the census of 2000, there were 19,635 people, 8,000 households, and 5,592 families residing in the county. The population density was 44 people per square mile . There were 9,722 housing units at an average density of 22 per square mile...
    
    . ever since.
• Serena (2008)
  • The ambitious wife of a North Carolina timber baron, Serena brings the spirit of Lady MacBeth to depression-era North Carolina.

Magazine Publications

• The Woman at the Pond (The Southern Review, Vol. 46.4, 2010)

Honors

• 1987: General Electric Younger Writers Award.
• 1996: The Sherwood Anderson Prize.
• 2002: Novello Literary Award for One Foot in Eden.
• 2002: ForeWord Magazine’s Gold Medal in Literary Fiction for One Foot in Eden.
• 2002: Appalachian Book of the Year for One Foot in Eden.
• 2004: Saints at the River is awarded Fiction Book of the Year by the Southern Book Critics Circle.
• 2004: Saints at the River is awarded Fiction Book of the Year by the Southeastern Booksellers Association.
• 2004: Saints at the River is given the Weatherford Award for Best Novel of 2004.
• 2005: Rash is given the James Still Award by the Fellowship of Southern Writers.
• Short Story "Speckled Trout" included in 2005 O. Henry Prize Stories. This story formed the basis for the first chapter of The World Made Straight.
• In 2006, Participants in Western North Carolina will be reading Saints at the River as part of the region's program, "Together We Read."
• 2008: Chemistry and Other Stories a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction.
• 2009: Serena a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction.
• 2010: Awarded Heasley Prize at Lyon College
  Lyon College
  Lyon College is an independent, residential, co-educational, undergraduate liberal arts college affiliated with the Presbyterian Church . Founded in 1872, it is the oldest independent college in Arkansas...
  
  .
• 2010: Burning Bright winner of Frank O'Connor Award

External links

• Saints at the River and Selected Poems