This news item expired on Thursday, August 16, 2012 so the information below could be outdated or incorrect.
Local author Ron Rash, who has deep family roots in and around Leicester, will give a talk at the Leicester Branch Library on Thursday, August 16 at 7 p.m. and will read from his fiction and poetry. Rash’s most recent novel, The Cove, was recently listed as one of Amazon’s “Best Books of the Year So Far,” which includes works that have come out in the first six months of 2012. The novel also was named in a Publishers Weekly roundup of the “Best Summer Books 2012.” Rash’s New York Times best-selling novel, Serena, is currently being adapted for film and is expected to be released next year.
Released in April, The Cove is set in Western North Carolina during World War I and tells the story of a mountain woman, Laurel Shelton, who lives in an isolated cove with her brother, Hank, a war veteran recently returned from France. One day, Laurel finds a stranger, Walter, who has been nearly stung to death by yellow jackets, and she nurses him back to health. As she falls in love, others begin to suspect Walter is not who he seems to be, which threatens Laurel’s hopes for the future.
Rash has also written other prize-winning novels: One Foot in Eden, Saints at the River, and The World Made Straight, in addition to several collections of poems and short stories, including Burning Bright which garnered him the Frank O’Connor Short Story Award. Rash teaches creative writing and Appalachian literature at Western Carolina University as the Parris Distinguished Professor of Appalachian Culture.
The public is invited to attend Ron Rash’s presentation at Leicester Library. Admission is free. Leicester Library is located at 1561 Alexander Road in Leicester. Call 250-6480 for directions or further information.