James Still

James Still's works – his novels, short stories, poetry and children's literature resonate with his affection for his chosen home, the mountains of eastern Kentucky. He used language as an artist uses paint or a musician uses notes to evoke sights and sounds, personalities and situations, with rare clarity., A native of Alabama, Still came to Knott County in 1931, at the height of the Great Depression. Taken with the area, he decided to stay and work at his passion, writing, full time. When offered a job at Hindman Settlement School as a librarian, he gladly accepted. Still's first poem was published in 1935. He began to write short stories, such as Brother to Methuselem that, like much of his poetry, drew from the community in which he lived. In 1937 his collected poems were published as Hounds on the Mountain., In June 1939 James Still moved “nine miles over a wagon road and two miles up a creek bed” to a century-old two-story log house. There, he completed his first novel, River of Earth. Published in 1940, it is an American classic. For over sixty years, James Still lived and wrote in the log house bounded by Deadmare Branch and Wolfpen Creek, crafting poems and stories that capture the wisdom and humor, the people and places, of his Appalachian home., “Morning was bright and rain-fresh. The sharp sunlight fell slantwise upon the worn limestone earth of the hills, and our house squatted weathered and dark on the bald slope.” – River of Earth, 1940, [Caption] James Still 1906-2001