Silas House Silas House: The History of Every Country

2009 schedule of events

monday, september 28:


Screening of Award-Winning Appalachian Environmental Film Documentary Sludge, 7:00 p.m. at Reynolds Hall, sponsored by the Shepherdstown Film Society. Following the screening will be a discussion of this important environmental issue and its impact on West Virginia, led by Dr. Ed Snyder, Chair of Institute for Environmental Studies.

tuesday, september 29:


A Celebration of Appalachian Storytellers: A Kentucky Muse and The Anthology of Appalachian Writers, 7:00 p.m., at the Robert C. Byrd Center for Legislative Studies, sponsored by the Friends of the Shepherdstown Library. This program will begin with a short KET documentary on Kentucky writer Silas House and his novel A Parchment of Leaves, followed by introduction of the new Anthology of Appalachian Writers and selected readings by the authors. Reception and book signing for The Anthology of Appalachian Writers, Volume I, will follow.

wednesday, september 30:


Silas House visits with Martinsburg, Jefferson, Musselman, and Berkeley Springs High School students at Martinsburg High School, 9:00 a.m. in Martingsburg, WV;

House Reading House, Martinsburg Public Library and Reception, 10:30 a.m.;

Lunch at the Bavarian Inn with AHWIR Project Director, etal;

Writers Master Class with Silas House, 3:00-4:30 p.m., at Robert C. Byrd Center for Legislative Studies;

"The Writing Life, with Silas House," 7:00 p.m. at Robert C. Byrd Center for Legislative Studies. Silas House will discusses his work, the writing process, his personal journey toward authorship, public reception will follow.

thursday, october 1:


Scarborough Society Lecture and Awards Ceremony, "The History of Every Country”: Place in the Poetry and Fiction of Silas House,” 8:00 p.m., at Erma Byrd Hall. Silas House will receive the Appalachian Heritage Writer's Award and present the keynote address, WV Fiction Competition Awards presented by Silas House.

friday, october 2:


“The Appalachians: Writers and Renegades, with George Brosi and Silas House,” 5:00 p.m., at Robert C. Byrd Center for Legislative Studies;

The Appalachian Heritage Festival Concert, 8:00 p.m., at Frank Theater, Music with John Lily and Silas House, a reading of the award-winning West Virginia Fiction Competition selection.

saturday, october 3:


Appalachian Heritage Festival activities, demonstrations, events all day.

Festival Concert, 8:00 p.m., at Frank Theater. See Festival website here.

silas house's works

Clay's Quilt | 2001

Clay's Quilt
2001

After his mother is killed, four-year-old Clay Sizemore finds himself alone in a small Appalachian mining town. At first, unsure of Free Creek, he learns to lean on its residents as family. There’s Aunt Easter, who is always filled with a sense of foreboding, bound to her faith above all; untamable Evangeline; and Alma, the fiddler whose song wends its way into Clay's heart. Together, they help Clay fashion a quilt of a life from what treasured pieces surround him.


A Parchment of Leaves<br />2003

A Parchment of Leaves
2003

It is the early 1900s in rural Kentucky, and young Saul Sullivan is heading up to Redbud Camp to look for work. He is wary but unafraid of the Cherokee girl there whose beauty is said to cause the death of all men who see her. But the minute Saul lays eyes on Vine, he knows she is meant to be his wife. Vine’s mother disapproves of the mixed marriage; But once Vine walks into God’s Creek, Saul’s mother and brother Aaron take to her immediately. It quickly becomes clear to Vine, though, that Aaron is obsessed with her.


The Coal Tattoo

The Coal Tattoo
2004

Two sisters are orphaned when their father is killed in a coal mine accident and their mother, insane with grief, takes her own life. Easter, the older sister at 22 is conventional, a churchgoing woman who sees her life as performing her duty. Anneth, 17 is fun-loving, somewhat wild and scornful of authority. The setting is coal mining country in Kentucky in the late 1950s. It covers 11 years to the end of the 1960s.


The Hurting Part

The Hurting Part
2005

This is a book of beautiful writing that is, simultaneously, an insightful volume about the art of writing. In the various sections of The Hurting Part: Evolution of an American Play, Silas House presents his three-act drama, The Hurting Part, alongside its full literary and developmental context. The book contains not only the full-length script, but also the short story from which the play itself evolved.


Something's Rising

Something's Rising
2009

Something's Rising collects oral histories from a diverse group of individuals from Kentucky, West Virginia, Tennessee, and Virginia who are fighting mountaintop removal, an ecologically devastating form of coal mining. Taken together, these voices stand as a testament of what it means to be an Appalachian and the value of preserving a culture's history and spirit through the stories of its people.


Eli the Good

Eli the Good
2009

Eli the Good, Silas' forthcoming novel, will be available in September, 2009.