Issue 4:1 I Interview I Silas House

 

The Nantahala Interview with Silas House
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ISilas House © Joseph Champagnen the leaf-change of October 2008, Rob Merritt, Joe Champagne, and I packed our pens, pads, cameras, and video equipment and headed up Highway 58 to the Cumberland Gap, to spend the day with the Appalachian author Silas House. 

Prior to our visit, I had read Clay’s Quilt and A Parchment of Leaves and knew of Mr. House’s interest in generating regional pride through narrative tales honest to lived-experience in the southern mountains.  But it wasn’t until Rob and I saw Mr. House speak at the Appalachian Studies Association Conference at Marshall University in spring of 2008 that confirmed him as our choice to be the Featured Artists for Issue 4:01 of Nantahala.  We were, as most people who hear Silas House read or speak, immediately struck by three aspects of his character: 1) his passionate dedication to raising critical awareness of Mountain Top Removal, 2) his natural inclination to tell stories, and 3) his authentic southern Appalachian dialect.  It was these three aspects that confirmed in our minds that we needed to interview Silas House on video and share his regional vision and literary craft with Nantahala readers. 

The interview stays true to the three aspects that drew us to Silas House in the first place: it includes comments about his desire to create, through fiction, a sense of regional pride, his thoughts on how he, as a writer, handles political issues, such as Mountain Top Removal, in narrative form, and his views on “craft” problems, such as how to write dialect without making the prose sound like a “Hee-Haw script”—all essential concerns for anyone interested in writing or studying Appalachian literature.

 


Onward in the Real Work,

Mark A. Roberts


Introduction: Leaving the Cradle

 

 

 

The Interview




Walking to Choo Choo’s BBQ and Brew, Rob asks Silas
about Cumerbland Gap’s civil war history.




After a chat and chow at Choo Choo’s, Silas tells us the legendary tale
of the founding of Lincoln Memorial University and gives us
a walking tour of the historic places in Cumberland Gap



Silas imagines writing a civil war novel in which one of the characters works at this 19th century Iron Furnace, located near the Tennessee Road.

-and-

How often do you visit the Tennessee Road and Iron Furnace to write?




Back on LMU campus, Silas talks about his literary forebear, James Still.

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