S283. Darkness on the Edge of Town: Rural America in Contemporary Literature
Saturday, February 11, 2017
4:30 pm to 5:45 pm
One of our bedrock myths is that of Thomas Jefferson's yeoman farmer: the straight-backed, straight-shooting, hard-working small-towner. Yet one of our most pernicious national stereotypes stands in direct opposition: that of the redneck—think of Deliverance or Cletus the Slack-Jawed Yokel. Who, really, are rural Americans? Five authors from across the genres attempt to peel back the mythologies and stereotypes of popular culture and speak honestly about contemporary rural America.
Participants
Moderator:
Joe Wilkins is the author of a memoir, The Mountain and the Fathers: Growing Up on the Big Dry, winner of the 2014 GLCA New Writers Award in Nonfiction, and three collections of poems, When We Were Birds, Notes from the Journey Westward, and Killing the Murnion Dogs.
Melanie Hoffert is the author of Prairie Silence, winner of the 2014 Minnesota Book Award in Memoir and Creative Nonfiction. Winner of two literary journal Creative Nonfiction Awards, she has spoken nationally on issues of rural out-migration and sexuality identity.
Greg Brownderville
Kelly Sundberg
