"A great storyteller . . . These vignettes of life in the southern Appalachians are an important contribution to the literature of the region." — Chattanooga TimesIn language both spare and colorful, sure in its command of Appalachian dialect and poetic in its evocation of mountain settings, James Still's stories reveal the lives of his people—lives of privation and struggle, lived with honesty as well as humor. With a foreword by Cleanth Brooks and an afte...

"Hard times during the Depression and family sacrifices are treated with honesty and humor" in this YA book by the author of River of Earth ( School Library Journal).Sporty Creek is a series of short stories set in the Kentucky hills. Narrated by a young boy (a cousin of the narrator of Still's classic novel River of Earth), the book tells the story of his family during the Great Depression. With work in the coal mines sporadic, t...

"One of our greatest American poets. In particular he has captured the spirit and language of the Appalachian South . . . like no other." —Lee Smith, New York Times-bestselling authorJames Still first achieved national recognition in the 1930s as a poet. Although he is better known today as a writer of fiction, it is his poetry that many of his essential images, such as the "mighty river of earth," first found expression. Yet much of his poetry remains out ...

Known in the Medford area as "doctor", James Still was not a licensed physician. The title was conferred by grateful patients who welcomed his gentle remedies after the "heroic" treatment prescribed by most nineteenth-century doctors. Purging and blood-letting were common practice and medication was intended to produce violent results. Blisters, cupping, leeches, and tobacco injections were still used. No wonder suffering patients preferred the vegetable preparations and cooling liniments ...

The people of the Kentucky mountains and the southern Appalachians preserved a language alive with colorful turns of phrase and whimsical wit and for their amusement they created a rich vein of oral lore—songs, tales, and games. James Still presents a varied and entertaining collection of riddles, whimsies, and verbal pranks, gathered through his long association with the mountain people of eastern Kentucky.This book includes in one volume two earlier books—Way Down Yonder on T...

First published in 1937, Hounds on the Mountain evokes James Still's personal experiences of eastern Kentucky through reflective folk poems describing Appalachian mountain life from birth through death. Written during the Great Depression, the collection emphasizes a collective reliance on the earth and the primacy of nature that Still observed from the seclusion of his thirty-acre home in Knott County, Kentucky.Still, who became known as the "Dean of Appalachian Literatur...

James Still left eastern Kentucky for Europe in 1941 after enlisting in the US Army during World War II, leaving behind a recently published, semi-autobiographical work of fiction, On Troublesome Creek. Even as he developed a broader worldview, his work continued to draw from the agrarian and regional sources of life in the Cumberland Plateau that supported the American war effort. Like the riverbeds and creeks he so often evoked, Still reminds readers of the local and regional fo...

James Still (1906–2001) remains one of the most beloved and important writers of Appalachian literature. Best known for his acclaimed novel River of Earth (1940), the Alabama native and adopted Kentuckian left an enduring legacy of novels, stories, and poems during his nearly seventy-year career. The Hills Remember: The Complete Short Stories of James Still honors the late writer by collecting all of Still's short stories, including those from On Troublesome Creek

James Still (1906–2001) remains one of the most beloved and important writers of Appalachian literature. Best known for his acclaimed novel River of Earth (1940), the Alabama native and adopted Kentuckian left an enduring legacy of novels, stories, and poems during his nearly seventy-year career. The Hills Remember: The Complete Short Stories of James Still honors the late writer by collecting all of Still's short stories, including those from On Troublesome Creek

Celebrated as the "Dean of Appalachian Literature," James Still has won the appreciation of audiences in Appalachia and beyond for more than seventy years. The author of the classics River of Earth (1940) and The Wolfpen Poems (1986), Still is known for his careful prose construction and for the poetry of his meticulous, rhythmic style. Upon his death, however, one manuscript remained unpublished. Still's friends, family, and fellow writer Silas House will now deliver thi...

After keeping school for six years at the forks of Troublesome Creek in the Kentucky hills, James Still moved to a century-old log house between the waters of Wolfpen Creek and Dead Mare Branch, on Little Carr Creek, and became "the man in the bushes" to his curious neighbors. Still joined the life of the scattered community. He raised his own food, preserved fruits and vegetables for the winter, and kept two stands of bees for honey. A neighbor remarked of Still, "He's left a good job, an...

After keeping school for six years at the forks of Troublesome Creek in the Kentucky hills, James Still moved to a century-old log house between the waters of Wolfpen Creek and Dead Mare Branch, on Little Carr Creek, and became "the man in the bushes" to his curious neighbors. Still joined the life of the scattered community. He raised his own food, preserved fruits and vegetables for the winter, and kept two stands of bees for honey. A neighbor remarked of Still, "He's left a good job, an...