Reading with author Pamela Duncan May 1 at Berea College

“As anyone who has ever attended one of her readings can attest,” wrote acclaimed novelist Lee Smith in her article on Pam Duncan in the magazine, “she can be hilarious.”

Co-sponsored by the Berea College Appalachian Center and the Department of English, Theatre, and Speech Communication, the event will begin with refreshments at 7:30 p.m. in the Appalachian Center Gallery, followed by readings and conversation at 8 p.m.  The Gallery is located in the Bruce Building on Berea’s campus, near the intersection of Main and Chestnut Streets.

Admission is free, and all are welcome.

Screen printer Debbie Littledeer, the featured artist for the spring 2009 issue, will also be present.  Copies of her prints and cards will be available for purchase.  Littledeer, born and raised in North Carolina, began designing and making silkscreen prints, also known as serigraphs, full time in 1986 and has been a member of the Southern Highland Craft Guild ever since.  Nearly forty galleries and shops represent her work throughout the Southeast.

Pamela Duncan was born in Asheville, N.C., and grew up in the communities of Black Mountain, Swannanoa, and Shelby.  Her large and impressive first novel, Moon Women, was a Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance Award Finalist, and her second novel, Plant Life, won the 2003 Sir Walter Raleigh Award for Fiction.  She is also the recipient of the 2007 James Still Award for Writing about the Appalachian South, awarded by the Fellowship of Southern Writers.

“Regardless of time and milieu,” Lee Smith writes in Appalachian Heritage, “Pam always presents her people and her region in a warm clear light, showing the humanity, strength, and humor in us all.  This confident, vibrant, wild and wonderful woman is one of the very best public speakers I have ever heard, and is an invaluable spokesperson for our region.”

Duncan’s friend and fellow Appalachian author Silas House agrees.  “The reason that Pam’s writing sings is because it rings with the voices of the people.  All of her characters know who they are and know where they’re from.  And so does Pam Duncan.  Like the best Appalachian writers, the mountains live in Pam’s hands.  The land is part of her, and it lives and breathes in her books, an undeniable force as strong as the men and women who populate her pages.”

Duncan holds a B.A. in journalism from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and an M.A. in English / Creative Writing from North Carolina State University in Raleigh.  She currently lives in Cullowhee, North Carolina, and teaches creative writing at Western Carolina University.  In addition to her full-time teaching responsibilities, she also makes presentations and teaches at writers workshops all over the South.  Duncan is currently working on her fourth novel, The Wilder Place, set in the North Carolina mountains.

APPALACHIAN HERITAGE strives to keep readers abreast of the visual and literary arts of the Southern Appalachian region by presenting a mix of well-established writers and artists as well as fresh new voices.  Founded in 1973, Appalachian Heritage is a part of the Berea College Appalachian Center and has been published since 1985 by Berea College.  Spring 2009 issues, as well as back issues, will be available for sale at the May 1 celebration.  For more information, visit www.berea.edu/appalachianheritage or call (859) 985-3699.