<DIV><p>"Buy this book, it's a barn burner!"?Dorothy Allison</p><p>In an extraordinarily diverse anthology of poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and graphic narratives by contemporary Appalachian writers, <I>Red Holler</I> takes us over and beyond the stock imagery of rural mountain communities. We travel into housing projects, forest-stripped ravines, and trailer parks, to explore vibrant hometown and migrant Appalachian cultures. Editors John E. Branscum and Wayne Thomas have assembled a collection spanning ten years and communities in locales ranging from Mississippi to New York, placing fresh new voices alongside widely known and celebrated authors. Drawing on Appalachian literature’s roots in Native American myth, African American urban legend, and European folk culture, and embracing Appalachian urban fiction, the Southern Gothic, gritty no-holds-barred realism, and magical realism, the stories and poems of <I>Red Holler</I> elegantly cohere to perfectly depict what makes Appalachia so fascinating: its irreverent and outlaw challenges to mainstream notions of propriety and convention.</p><p><B>John Branscum</B> grew up in Kentucky, Arkansas, and California. He is currently a professor of creative writing at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, and literary editor for Black and Grey Magazine. His fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction have won the national Ursula K. Le Guin Award for Imaginative Fiction, several Academy of American Poets awards, and has appeared in <I>Evergreen Review</I>, <I>North American Review</I>, <I>Best American Non-required Reading</I>, and <I>Best American Horror</I>.</p><BR><p><B>Wayne Thomas</B> teaches creative writing at Tusculum College, a small school located in the northeast Tennessee mountains. He is editor of <B>The Tusculum Review</B>.</p></DIV>