From a press release:
Ron Rash reads at Blue Ridge Books, Nov. 8
Blue Ridge Books will host Ron Rash on Saturday, November 8
at 11 a.m. Rash will read from his new book (available Nov. 4)
entitled Something Rich and Strange: Selected Stories.Ron Rash is the author of the 2009 PEN/Faulkner finalist and New York Times bestselling novel Serena, in addition to four other prizewinning novels, including The Cove, One Foot in Eden, Saints at the River, and The World Made Straight; four collections of poems; and five collections of stories, among them Burning Bright, which won the 2010 Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award, and Chemistry and Other Stories, which was a finalist for the 2007 PEN/Faulkner Award. Twice the recipient of the O. Henry Prize, he teaches at Western Carolina University.
Something Rich and Strange contains thirty-four of Rash’s finest short stories, collected in one volume.
No one captures the complexities of Appalchia–a rugged, brutal landscape of exquisite beauty–as evocatively and indelibly as author and poet Ron Rash. Rash brilliantly illuminates the tensions between the traditional and the modern, the old and the new south, tenderness and violence, man and nature. Though his focus is regional, the themes of Rash’s work are universal, striking an emotional chord that resonates deep within each of our lives.
Something Rich and Strange showcases this acclaimed master’s artistry and craftsmanship in thirty-two stories culled from previously published collections and two available for the first time in book form: “Outlaws” and “Shiloh.” Each work of short fiction demonstrates Rash’s dazzling ability to evoke the heart and soul of this land and its people–men and women inexorably tethered to the geography that defines and shapes them. Filled with suspense and myth, hope and heartbreak, and told in language that flows like “shimmering, liquid poetry” (Atlanta Journal-Constitution), Something Rich and Strange is an iconic work from an American literary virtuoso.
The event is free and open to the public, however, seating is limited. A ticket for 2 reserved seats is available with the advance purchase of a book.
Very disappointed to discover that one of Ron Rash’s very best short stories, “Speckled Trout” is not included, would you believe, repeat NOT INCLUDED in the selected stories anthology, “Something Rich and Strange” that I was looking forward to buying. Unbelievable!!! i will not now purchase as a direct consequence of this omission.