Browse A-Z Authors: Gh-Gm

Gifford and Kazee have relied on never-before-seen letters, first-hand accounts shared by family members and friends, primary documents graciously donated by individuals and organizational entities, newspaper articles, other Stuart biographies, his autobiographies, and their daily contact with Stuart and his work through the Jesse Stuart Foundation. This biography provides insight into how both Stuart's closest friends and most distant fans viewed him, without hiding his eccentricities. Some have called his work overly sentimental; other have called it valuable and brilliant. His place in literature is controversial, the tales he wrote about himself suspect. But the influence of his works and the importance of his works and the importance of his life made him a national icon, a hero to America's teachers, and a friend to the thousands of people he met and inspired.

Greenup County, bordering the Ohio River in northeast Kentucky, is rich in history and culture. Settlers first arrived in the mid-1700s and carved farms from the hardwood forests. Lucy Virgin Downs, the first white child born west of the Alleghenies, lived in Greenup County, as did Jesse Boone, brother of Kentucky icon Daniel Boone. The 20th century brought industrialization and economic diversification to the historically agricultural area. Ashland Oil, a Fortune 500 company, maintained corporate headquarters in Greenup County. Two steel mills, a large rail yard, an excellent hospital, and a number of surface mines also provided employment to many people who continued to work their family farms, too. This economic progress was mirrored in every aspect of county life as education, health care, and recreation all improved dramatically. Today Greenup County's history is appreciated by both longtime residents and cultural tourists.

Biography, history; 270 pages, illustrations. "On September 26, 1918, during the devastating Battle of the Meuse-Argonne Forest, Sandlin, acting alone, attacked and disabled three German machine gun nests and killed all twenty-four occupants. During the day's fighting, Sandlin "voluntarily and deliberately" raced forward into dangers so great the he could hardly hope to survive. For his "conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity above and beyond the call of duty," Sandlin received the Medal of Honor, which was presented to him by General John J. Pershing before Sandlin returned to America at the end of the war."--Amazon.

Biography, history; 349 pages, illustrations. "Examines Stuart's enduring legacy and presents an overview of the broad range of Stuart's accomplishments as an author, educator, conservationist, spokesman for Kentucky and Appalachia, compulsive correspondent, world traveler, father, husband, and community-minded neighbor."--Page 4 of cover.

Juvenile fiction. A hard-working, adventuresome boy in Appalachian Kentucky tries various ways to earn money to buy his grandmother a Christmas present.

Biography, history; 96 pages, illustrations.

Biography; 79 pages; illustrations.

Juvenile fiction. When young Shan befriends a bull black snake, his Kentucky mountain family decides that perhaps the only good snake isn't a dead snake after all.

Originally published by Whittlesey House, 1954. Juvenile fiction. Shan is dishonest with the storekeeper in his rural Kentucky community, but he feels better about himself after his mother forces him to put things right.

Reprint. Originally published: New York : McGraw-Hill, 1966. Sunny Logan rides with Huey the engineer past her home in Clearwater Valley to see what is beyond the valley.

The author describes his father, a simple farmer who was rich in his love of living things and the strength he drew from the earth.

Fiction. Juvenile fiction. 303 pages; 22 cm. Teenage Sid Tussie sees big changes in his poor Kentucky family when they receive $10,000 insurance money for the death of his uncle in World War II and other greedy relatives scramble to share the wealth.

Originally published: New York : Crowell, 1960. Recollections of a boyhood spent in rural Kentucky. 285 pages; illustrations.

Fiction. Juvenile audience. Originally published in 1958. Sequel to: The Trail of the Hunter's Horn. A contest to find the best coon hound in Kentucky tests Jeb's belief in his half-blind dog Mooneye. 144 pages; illustrations.

Fiction. Juvenile audience. Originally published in 1957. Having grown old living in his shantyboat on the Big Sandy River in eastern Kentucky, John engages in a final battle with Scrapiron Jack, the huge catfish he has been trying to catch for years. 176 pages; illustrations.

Fiction. Juvenile audience. Originally published in 1957. Anxious to acquire a good coon dog, which is a badge of manhood in his Kentucky mountains, Jeb is dismayed when the pup he awaits is born with a stub tail and moon eye.

Fiction. Juvenile audience. Originally published in 1961. Thirteen-year-old Caleb trades a small pig for an old, ugly, crippled dog that nobody wants and he and the dog soon become inseparable friends. 144 pages; illustrations.

Short stories, essays, memoirs, and poetry; 112 pages. Contents: "Santa's Visit" / by Jesse Stuart; "Appalachian Christmas Angel" / by James B. Goode; "Joey's Best Christmas" / by Loyal Jones; "Christmas on the River" / by Billy C. Clark; "A Little Bit of Santa Claus" / by Thomas D. Clark; "Christmas Comes to Lord Calvert" / by Harry M. Caudill; "Christmas" / by Jesse Stuart; "December Nights" / by Jim Wayne Miller; "There Was a Silence" / by James B. Goode; "The Old Guy With Whiskers" / by Marlin W. Blaine; "Return of the Old Guy With Whiskers" / by Marlin W. Blaine.

Fiction; short stories; 207 pages. Contents: "Hold April" and "Slipover Sweater" / by Jesse Stuart; "Martha" / by Ancella R. Bickley; "In Country" and "Missing in Action in Appalachia" / by James M. Gifford; "Ben Paxton's Heart" / by Jimmy Lowe; "Coal Quilt" and "Buttons and Bows" / by James B. Goode; "Roses So Red" / by Edwina Pendarvis; "Blue Dreamers" and "Legend of Aracoma" / by Laura Treacy Bentley; "James Alexander Moore" / by James M. Gifford; "Old Pap's story" / by Bruce Radford Richey; "Harvest of Youth" and "Helpful Romantics" / by Ina Everman; "First String" / by Danny Fulks; "Laura" / by Loyal Jones; "Eternal Spring" and "Fiddle and the Fruit Jar" / by Billy C. Clark; "Melungeon Marriage" / by Jesse Stuart; "Branch Dance" / by Linda Scott DeRosier; "Connected" / by Christina St. Clair; "Album of Destiny" and "Matter of Perspective" / by Alexandra Combs Hudson; "Evelyn Alice Was a Farm Woman" / by Kate Larken; "Autumn Love Song" and "On the Left Bank" / by Barbara Smith; "House Upon the Sand" / by Carol Van Meter.

"The tragic events described in this book could have happened anywhere, but they happened here in central Appalachia. They are part of our history. Together, these stories create a literary "mourning quilt," commemorating the innocent and the guilty and piecing together significant remnants of two hundred years of life in eastern Kentucky, southern Ohio, and West Virginia." Contents: Introduction / James M. Gifford -- "The murder of a child named Hannah" / Phyllis Wilson Moore -- "A public end to a life of crime" / Edwina Pendarvis -- "The Ashland tragedy" / Keven McQueen -- "Feud murders in Rowan County" / Terry Diamond -- "The murder of three-year-old Lillian Patrick" / Keven McQueen -- "Tragedy on Greasy Ridge" / Danny Fulks -- "Cruelly murdered : Mary Magdalene Pitts" / Keven McQueen -- "In harm's way" / Phyllis Wilson Moore -- "Murder on Greasy Ridge" / Danny Fulks -- "Juliette Buffington Enslow's murder remains a Huntington mystery" / Jonathan D. Jeffrey -- "Murder on a college campus" / Keven McQueen -- "Sunday slaughter" -- "Pike County, Kentucky" / Edwina Pendarvis -- "The murder of Muriel Baldridge" / John David Preston -- "Together forever : the Skyline Drive murders of Don and Brenda Howard" / Judith F. Kidwell -- "Gene Markel lived as he had died ... a hard charger!" / Keith Kappes -- "Charles Manson's ties to the tri-state area" / James M. Gifford -- "A parade of horribles: the WVU coed murders" / Geoffrey Cameron Fuller -- "Murder at the Mount" / John Preston Smith -- "A murdering band of three: the 1985 Acker robbery and murder" / Brenda Evans -- "The devil in Jerry Toppins" / Daleen Berry and Linda Miller Benson -- "The mystery of the injured babies" / Lewis D. Nicholls -- "Quiet Dell revised" / Barbara Smith -- "Third wheel" / Daleen Berry and Geoffrey Cameron Fuller -- Afterword / Edwina Pendarvis -- Author bios.

"This book contains twenty-two biographical essays and one cultural essay by seventeen authors. The people who are profiled in this book are true representatives of millions of people who have populated the Big Sandy Valley for more than two hundred years. I invite you to read their stories and discover the reality of a great regional people." James M. Gifford. Contents: " Introduction -- Mary Schrader Hager (1755-1847) / John Sparks -- Jenny Wiley (1760-1831) / James M. Gifford -- Daniel Williams (1763-1820) / John Sparks -- Colonel George Gallup (1828-1880) / John David Preston -- John C.C. Mayo (1864-1914) / Harry M. Caudill -- Effie Waller Smith (1879-1960) / Edwina Pendarvis -- Jean Bell Thomas (1881-1982) / James M. Gifford -- Martin Himler (1888-1961) / Cathy Corbin -- Fred Vinson (1890-1953) / Kevin Coots -- Russell Williamson (1903-1993) / Linda Scott DeRosier -- Loretta Preston Spears (1911-2004) / Clyde Roy Pack -- Cratis Williams (1911-1985) / James M. Gifford -- Leonard Roberts (1912-1983) / Loyal Jones -- Verna Mae Slone (1914-2009) / Paula Kopacz -- Don Osborne and his siblings (1926- ) / James M. Gifford -- Eula Hall (1927- ) / Brenda Evans -- Billy C. Clark (1928-2009) / James M. Gifford -- Chad Perry (1929-2010) / James M. Gifford -- George Wolfford (1935- ) / John Cannon -- Donnis Butcher (1936-2012) / Linda Scott DeRosier -- Ira Potter (1942- ) / Nicole Wells -- Sam McKinney (1951- ) / Jonathan Jeffrey -- Folk medicine of the Big Sandy Valley / Ernest Martin Tucker -- About the authors.

Juvenile fiction; 144 pages. Old Bones was never much to look at but throughout his amazing life he showed that he loved to run and possessed a gentle nature and a winning spirit. Reprint. Originally published under title: Old Bones, The Wonder Horse. New York: Whittlesey House, 1955.

Local history; 131 pages, illustrations. Contents: "Exploring Our Mountain Heritage"/ by Clifford R. Lovin; "Our Natural Heritage" / by James H. Horton; "Our Indian Heritage" / by Theda Perdue; "Our Pioneer Heritage" / by James M. Gifford.

"This book captures the spirit of Christmas in 43 true stories by 39 authors. Thirty-five of the stories are set in Kentucky and the others are from neighboring states. All of these powerful and well-written stories emanate from the heart of Appalachia, and many attach themselves to your heart." --Summary from the Jesse Stuart Foundation

Bright, vibrant, intriguing, and unique, chromatic homes are speckled across the world's landscape. These historic houses and buildings are saturated with colors -- often highlighting decorative woodwork and architecture -- to enhance, revive, and regenerate various neighborhoods and communities. John I. "Hans" Gilderbloom explores and celebrates the appeal of these captivating houses in Chromatic Homes: The Joy of Color in Historic Places. Highlighted in gorgeous detail are the relevance of the homes' styles and colors as well as their history -- many believed to have been around for decades in American cities such as Louisville, Cincinnati, San Francisco, New Orleans, and Miami, and around for centuries in far-flung places such as Havana, Cuba, Venice, Italy, and Moscow, Russia. Gilderbloom reveals how renewing and updating historic homes has the ability to transform and galvanize a community, and these houses serve as creative havens for artists, writers, and musicians: author Alice Walker wrote The Color Purple in one of the most famous chromatic homes in San Francisco, and Mark Twain wrote The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer in a spectacular "painted lady" in Hartford, Connecticut. Filled with 182 engaging and eye-catching photos of homes all across the nation and the world, Chromatic Homes perfectly illustrates how the simple act of painting an ornate structure in bright or bold colors can inspire, empower, sustain and enlighten an entire community.

Foreword by Derek Shearer. Contents: Part I: Tenants and Urban Social Movement Theory; 1. Introduction and Overview; 2. Tenants and Social Theory; Part II: A Case Study of a Tenant Movement: Santa Monica; 3. A Case Study of Santa Monica's Progressive Movement; 4. Symbols and Collective Definitions of the Santa Monica Movement; Part III: Free Enterprise or Regulation? 5. Progressives in Office: Santa Monica; 6. Cities without Urban Grass-Roots Movements: The Case of Houston; Part IV: Conclusion; 7. Tenants' Movements and the Progressive American City

Downloadable article. Highlights: Examines the relationship between walkability and sustainability in a medium-sized city. Walkability results in higher neighborhood housing values. Walkability also reduces neighborhood abandonment and crime. Suggests additional research which might show walkability means longer lifespan. Offers policy opportunities to facilitate the development of more walkable communities. Abstract: In this study, researchers examined 170 neighborhoods in a medium-sized city to see whether walkability influences neighborhood sustainability. Until 2008, there had not been a reliable measure of the social, health, and economic impact of walkable neighborhoods. This dramatically changed when scholars were able to quantify walkability with tools such as Walkscore™; which measures how accessible daily living activities are by foot. The researchers investigated how walkability impacts the quality and sustainability of a neighborhood. They developed models that evaluated the correlation between an area's Walkscore™ and four broad measures of urban sustainability: neighborhood housing valuation; foreclosures; and crime. Our analysis shows a positive impact not only on neighborhood housing valuation but also on neighborhood crime and foreclosure. These results provide policy opportunities for planners and citizen groups to pursue strategies to encourage the development of more walkable and sustainable neighborhoods.

New directions for Latino public policy research, working paper no. 15.

A provocative look at the true forces that shape housing markets, challenging mainstream theories of supply and demand and calling for a new way to provide shelter to cities' most overlooked inhabitants: the elderly, the disabled and the poor. A legendary figure in the realms of public policy and academia, John Gilderbloom is one of the foremost urban-planning researchers of our time, producing groundbreaking studies on housing markets, design, location, regulation, financing, and community building. Now, in Invisible City, he turns his eye to fundamental questions regarding housing for the elderly, the disabled, and the poor. Why is it that some locales can offer affordable, accessible, and attractive housing, while the large majority of cities fail to do so? Invisible City calls for a brave new housing paradigm that makes the needs of marginalized populations visible to policy makers. Drawing on fascinating case studies in Houston, Louisville, and New Orleans, and analyzing census information as well as policy reports, Gilderbloom offers a comprehensive, engaging, and optimistic theory of how housing can be remade with a progressive vision. While many contemporary urban scholars have failed to capture the dynamics of what is happening in our cities, Gilderbloom presents a new vision of shelter as a force that shapes all residents.

Argues that universities can help revitalize poor neighborhoods.

Presents a sociological framework to the study of rental housing. This book offers an analysis that shows the value of applying a broad sociological approach to urban problems, one that takes into account the basic economic, social, and political dimensions of the urban housing crisis.

Article in the Journal of Housing, Volume 45, no.5 (Sept.-Oct. 1988)

Article in the National Civic Review, Volume 81, no.2 (spring-summer 1992)

Urban universities and colleges involved in community partnerships need comprehensive information to guide their presidents and boards in successful partnership implementation. Urban institutions should include an urban mission element in their overall mission statements and this should clearly define the goals of institutional leaders. The president's role in successful partnerships is proving requisite leadership and vision to the community, its leaders, and its members and to the university community. The president is also responsible for establishing and maintaining trust between the partners and using the university as a neutral ground. The primary role of the governing board is to balance the needs of the community and the institution. Boards also need to address policy issues such as setting priorities, determining opportunities for collaboration, defining student participation, determining faculty rewards, and establishing criteria for evaluation of success. Other issues boards need to consider include assessment of the general nature of the urban environment of the camps, the costs of developing and maintaining partnerships, and previous local partnership experiences. While there are barriers to successful university-community partnerships, these can be overcome if the partnership is carefully and constantly nurtured. (Contains 15 references.) (JLS).

DVD; five short films highlighting the challenges of urban renewal facing the United States today, and the promise that university-community partnerships hold in helping to restore our inner cities.

Act of Contrition focuses on the intimate relationship between Regina, a widow, and Michael, a young doctor whose wife left him for another man. Having found happiness in one another, they desire nothing more than to be together. Yet in the eyes of the Catholic Church, Michael is not free to divorce his wife and marry Regina. In an emotional climax Regina must decide if she loves Michael enough to give him up or if she'll force him to choose between her and God. By modern standards, Giles's love scenes are tasteful, and the general atmosphere of ecumenism within today's Catholic Church renders moot many of the tensions in the novel. Yet in 1957 Giles's agent and publisher feared the work would cause "irreparable harm" to her reputation. As late as 1972 Giles was revising in the hopes of seeing the novel published. Finally her wish is fulfilled.

Fiction. Historical fiction. Second edition. Originally published in 1951. 233 pages.

After writing Hill Man, Janice Holt Giles said, "I was struck by its strength. It is the most realistic ridge book we have written, completely honest and presenting the truest picture of most of the ridge men." Giles originally published the book in paperback in 1954 under the pseudonym John Garth. Her usual publisher declined to issue the novel, arguing that it was too sexual and violent for a writer whose other books were popular family book club selections. Now one of the most sought-after novels in the Giles canon, Hill Man is desired as much for its rarity as for its compelling and unromanticized portrayal of poor, rural Kentuckians. This special edition marks the first time the book has ever been available in hardback. The novel's hero is Rady Cromwell, a man with dangerous ways that make men admire him and women love him. Born the son of a preacher in the hills of Kentucky, Rady grows into a shrewd but likeable prankster and hell-raiser with a gift for separating people from their money. Beginning his adult life with nothing more than a gun, a dog, and a guitar, Rady becomes a backwoods entrepreneur, working diligently to climb the social and economic ladder. Hill Man follows Rady from his poor beginnings through his conquests of various women and pieces of property. Bold, inventive, hard working, and good natured, Rady follows every opportunity that comes along and takes great pride in raising a herd of cattle or a successful crop of corn or tobacco. Yet he also delights in singing folk ballads around a fire, in the thrill of a foxhunt by moonlight, and in the refreshing waters of a stream after a long day in the fields.

Originally published in 1959. Set against a background of the Osage-Cherokee wars this is the story of Johnny Fowler ... [who] runs a trading post and feels a sympathetic understanding for the Osage. His love for a young teacher is jeopardized when he avenges a Cherokee attack on an Osage village, determined to wipe out a force which has inflicted unspeakable violence on the Indians he knows and appreciates.

In her fourth novel of the Kentucky frontier, Giles combines her fascination for the past with her gift for storytelling. Had it not been for the loyalty of men like Giles's fictional hero, Major Cassius Cartwright, General James Wilkinson's 1783 attempt to create a Spanish empire in the West might have succeeded. Interwoven with the Spanish Conspiracy are tales of struggles with Indians, of the birth of a Green River Valley town, and of the two women Cass loves: Rachel, a gentle Quaker, and Tattie, a fiery waif he rescues from Philadelphia slums. Like Giles's earlier historical novels, The Land Beyond the Mountains is an engaging story of adventure and romance. First published in 1958, this reprint gives Giles fans another lively piece of Kentucky's frontier history.

Originally published in 1954. Janice Holt Giles had a life before her marriage and writing career in Kentucky. Born in Altus, Arkansas, Giles spent many childhood summers visiting her grandparents there. After the success of her historical novel The Kentuckians in 1953, she planned to write a second frontier romance. But a visit to Altus caused her imagination to drift from Kentucky in 1780 to western Arkansas in 1913. At age forty-eight -- the same age as Giles at the writing of the novel -- the heroine Katie Rogers recalls her first visit alone to her grandparent's home in Stanwick, Arkansas. Eight-year-old Katie spends her summer climbing the huge mulberry tree and walking with her wise grandfather, a veteran of bloody Shiloh. She is fascinated, not frightened, by the grave of an unknown child in the nearby plum thicket. Throughout the visit Katie helps Aunt Maggie plan her wedding and looks forward to the three-day Confederate Reunion. But the Reunion -- and the summer -- end violently, as guilt, repression, and miscegenation are unearthed. "That summer was the end of a whole way of life," Katie realizes, for she can never again dwell in the paradise of childhood. In Katie Rogers, Giles voiced her own lament for "the beautiful and the unrecoverable past." To her publisher Giles wrote, "Out of my forty-odd years of living, much of whatever wisdom I have acquired has been distilled into this book." This new edition of The Plum Thicket gives Giles's many fans a powerful, moving glimpse into the mind and heart of this beloved author.

Originally published in 1964. The rich history of river life in Kentucky permeates Janice Holt Giles's novel Run Me a River. Set in 1861, at the beginning of Kentucky's reluctant entry into the Civil War, the novel tells the story of a five-day adventure on the Green River. Aboard the Rambler, a ramshackle steamboat, Captain Bohannon Cartwright and his crew journey 184 miles and pick up two extra passengers along the way. The boatmenrescue "Sir Henry" Cole, a former Shakespearean actor, and his granddaughter Phoebe from their skiff when it overruns in a squall. As romance blossoms between Phoebe and Captain Bo, a conflict escalates between Confederate and Union forces fighting for control of the river.

A girl of the Arkansas Territory, widowed at 19, faces life alone on the rough frontier, determined to show herself the equal of any man.

Originally published in 1962. The dangerous journey by mule wagon train across the plains from Arkansas Territory in the spring of 1823 tests the marriage of "Johnny Osage" and Judith, his young wife and gentle New England girl.

Originally published in 1975. The last book Giles published before her death in 1979, Wellspring has been out of print for years. The nineteen selections bring together Giles's fiction, nonfiction, autobiography, and fictionalized autobiography to reveal a behind-the-scenes look at her life, her family, her love for her adopted state of Kentucky and its people, her politics, her favorite authors, her thoughts on writing, and her views of her own work. Wellspring is available again for old and new readers of Janice Holt Giles. Janice Holt Giles (1905-1979), author of nineteen books, lived and wrote near Knifley, Kentucky, for thirty-four years. Her biography is told in Janice Holt Giles: A Writer's Life.

Series: Piney Ridge, book 1.
Originally published in 1950, The Enduring Hills was Janice Holt Giles's first novel. It is based in part on her own courtship and introduction to the Kentucky mountain country. Here, Giles introduces Hod and Mary Pierce and begins her Appalachian trilogy. Hod Pierce, a boy not unlike Henry Giles, who grows up on Piney Ridge, where generations of Pierces have made a living from the stubborn soil. Hod loves his people and the land but longs also for wider horizons, for more education, and for the freedom he imagines can be found in the outside world. It takes World War II to carry Hod away from the Ridge and out into the great world, and it is a long time before he comes back. After the war is over, Hod settles into marriage and a factory job in the city. Finally it is Mary, his city-bred wife, who sees at last that to Hod, Piney Ridge will always be home. In her preface to the second edition, Mrs. Giles wrote, "I believe [the story] is timeless and as the hands of the clock have turned and turned, people are turning back to the earth, knowing now that saving this earth is the most important work in the world, that we must all become, as Hod and Mary Pierce did, a man and woman with faith in the earth." Janice Holt Giles (1905-1979), author of nineteen books, lived and wrote near Knifley, Kentucky, for thirty-four years. Her biography is told in Janice Holt Giles: A Writer's Life.

Series: Piney Ridge, book 3.
Originally published in 1951. "This is the story of Tara Cochrane, who had been Hod's captain during World War II. Tara had returned from Europe to study medicine and start a practice, only to collapse with a severe nervous breakdown. Hod finds him in the hospital, scarcely recognizable as the tough commander who had slogged it out beside his men through France, Germany, and Austria. When the time comes for Hod to leave the hospital, he persuades Tara to go with him in the hope that the peace of the hill country will effect a cure where medicine has failed." - Cover p. [4].

Series: Kentuckians, book 1.
The Kentuckians of Janice Holt Giles's title were that hardy band of angels who straggled through Cumberland Gap in the 1770s and carved their farms from the wilderness of Virginia's westernmost country. In her historical novel, first published in 1953, Giles invited the reader to experience the danger and beauty of life on the American frontier. Many of the frontiersmen were hunters in search of escape from an ever-advancing civilization, seeking freedom and space. Such a man was David Cooper, who had hunted the Kentucky wilderness with Daniel Boone before the first settlers crossed the Appalachians. No love of land or home or woman had been strong enough to hold David -- until he met Bethia. It was for her that he cleared his patch of forest, planted crops, and built a cabin. Too late, he learned that the girl he had dreamed of marrying was the wife of his enemy. David and Bethia belonged to a generation that never knew or expected security, and the background of their story is one of turmoil: Outnumbered and ill-equipped, early settlers were hard put to defend their forts; and, although united in war against the British and their Indian allies, they were often at odds among themselves. Many, including Boone, held land grants from Judge Henderson's Transylvania Company. Others, like David, based their claims on the authority of Virginia. Few today realize how close the British came to winning out. In her research, Giles studied the journals of the early Kentuckians and has retold their story in their own easy-flowing, cadenced prose. Only the three central characters are fictional. All subsidiary characters and historical events are authentic, set against the background of a country the author knows and loves. Janice Holt Giles (1905-1979), author of nineteen books, lived and wrote near Knifley, Kentucky, for thirty-four years. Her biography is told in Janice Holt Giles: A Writer's Life.

Series: Kentuckians, book 2.
In the novel Hannah Fowler, Janice Holt Giles created a pioneer woman who would, In Giles's words, "endow her own physical seed with her strength and courage, and her own tenderness and love." First published in 1956, this work is the second in Giles's series of historical novels on Kentucky, which includes The Kentuckians and The Believers. Samuel Moore and his daughter Hannah set out for the border country with a party led by George Rogers Clark but left to follow the Kentucky River to Boones' Fort. As the story opens, Hannah is nursing her father, injured when an axe slips and cuts his leg. By the time Tice Fowler, on his way to Logan's Fort, stumbles upon them alone in the wilderness, Samuel is dying from blood poisoning. When Samuel dies, Tice takes Hannah to the fort, where women are scarce, and Hannah finds herself besieged by suitors. Only with Tice, as silent and downright as herself, does Hannah feel at ease. Finally, she turns to the bashful Tice and asks him to marry her and take her away from the crowded fort. Together, they take their claim to land, build a cabin, and start a family. They endure the harsh frontier life, the threat of hungry wolves, a killing blizzard, and Indian raids. Hannah is an unforgettable character -- tall, physically and psychologically strong, the epitome of frontier womanhood -- brought to life by a woman who knew and loved the Kentucky people and setting about which she wrote. Janice Holt Giles (1905-1979), author of nineteen books, lived and wrote near Knifley, Kentucky, for thirty-four years. Her biography is told in Janice Holt Giles: A Writer's Life.

Series: Kentuckians, book 3.
In her historical novels about Kentucky, Janice Holt Giles has become known for the integrity with which she handles her material and for the realism with which she writes. In The Believers, first published in 1957, she continues her series about the settling of Kentucky with a moving story of love and marriage set in a Shaker community. Rebecca Fowler is only seventeen when she marries Richard Cooper. She cannot remember a time when she has not loved and trusted him and followed where he led. At first the marriage is happy; it is only after their child is stillborn that Richard shows preliminary signs of religious fanaticism in his insistence that this is God's punishment visited upon them. The Shaker missionaries newly arrived in Kentucky find him an easy convert. When Richard joins the Shaker community, Rebecca goes with him, as a dutiful wife should, hoping that her love will ultimately win him back to her and to the larger world. She becomes part of a strange world in which men and women -- even husbands and wives -- live apart, coming together only for meals and for worship. As time passes and she sees Richard's affection recede, only her stubborn honesty gives her the strength to deny lip service to a doctrine she cannot truly accept and, at the last, courage to follow the dictates of her heart. In this novel, Mrs. Giles gives us a unique picture of everyday life in a Shaker village, one of the experiments in utopian communal living that are a part of American history. Realistically but with understanding, she shows us a society animated not only by saintliness but by bigotry and ordinary human frailties. Janice Holt Giles (1905-1979), author of nineteen books, lived and wrote near Knifley, Kentucky, for thirty-four years. Her biography is told in Janice Holt Giles: A Writer's Life.

Series: The Great Adventure, book 1.
A novel of the Rocky Mountain fur trade.

Series: The Great Adventure, book 2.
Originally publsihed in 1967. In the sequel to The Great Adventure, in Broke Neck, Kentucky, the Appalachian natives disapprove of denominations and believe the minister ought to live without pay in the mid-20th century.
Broke Neck, Kentucky, lies deep in Appalachia. Its people are descendents of the men and women who settled the country during the Revolutionary War, and their ways have not changed much in the past two hundred years. Shady Grove chronicles the riotous adventures and misadventures of Broke Neck's Fowler clan, among them Frony, the feisty and articulate widow who narrates the tale, and Sudley, the thrice-married farmer and quintessential "ridge man." Sudley, who wields considerable political influence among his kin and community, isn't happy when a new preacher from "outside" comes in from his city-based denomination with ideas about what's wrong in Broke Neck. What follows is a compelling example of the tension between urban viewpoints and rural traditions, a central conflict in Appalachia. The town's delicate balance is disturbed when other outsiders -- federal revenue officials and four suitors responding to a personal ad -- converge in an unlikely climax that is both comic and telling. In her last book of fiction about her adopted Kentucky homeland, Janice Holt Giles cleverly dispels the common stereotypes of rural peoples by creating honest, believable characters who cherish their soil, churches, songs, and lines of kin. Shady Grove is a novel that makes us laugh and touches our hearts.

Series: The Great Adventure, book 3.
Joe Fowler, 19, becomes a stagecoach reinsman in 1859 and drives the Overland Stage west for 10 years before the railroad arrives in this sequel to Shady Grove.

Originally published in 1952. In the late 1940s, Janice and Henry Giles moved from Louisville, Kentucky, back to the Appalachian hill country where Henry had grown up and where his family had lived since the time of the Revolution. With their savings, the couple bought a ramshackle house and forty acres of land on a ridge top and set out to be farmers like Henry's forebears. To this personal account of the trials of a city woman trying to learn the ways of the country and of her neighbors, Janice Holt Giles brings the same warmth, humor, and powers of observation that characterize her novels. Enlightening and evocative, personal and universally pertinent, this description of a year of "backaches, fun, low ebbs, and high tides, and above all a year of eminent satisfaction" will be welcomed by Janice Holt Giles's many readers, old and new.

A memoir of the Kentucky couple's years in their log home from 1954-1971. 358 pages; illustrations; portraits; map.

Regimental history. "How one battalion of Combat Engineers stalled Hitler's offensive in the Battle of the Bulge"--Jacket subtitle. 409 pages; illustrations; maps; plans; portraits.

A weapons sergeant with the 291st Combat Engineers during the Second World War presents an intensely human and vivid account of a soldier's day-by-day existence. 399 pages; illustrations; maps; portraits.

Autobiography. 337 pages; illustrations.

Originally published in 1963. A warm and humorous account of the trials of creating a place to call home. To longtime Giles fans and new readers alike, these reminiscences of family, friends, a river, and a roof offer a charming visit to rural Kentucky in the late 1950s.

With an introduction by Wade Hall, Morris Grubbs has sifted through vintage classics, little-known gems, and stunning debuts to assemble this collection of forty stories by popular and critically acclaimed writers. In subtle and profound ways they challenge and overturn accepted stereotypes about the land their authors call home, whether by birth or by choice. Kentucky writers have produced some of the finest short stories published in the last fifty years, much of which focuses on the tension between the comforts of community and the siren-like lure of the outside world. Arranged chronologically, from Robert Penn Warren's "Blackberry Winter" to Crystal E. Wilkinson's "Humming Back Yesterday," these stories are linked by their juxtaposition of departures and returns, the familiar and the unknown, home and beyond. Contributors: Robert Penn Warren, Caroline Gordon, James Still, Jane Mayhall, Elizabeth Hardwick, Dean Cadle, Jesse Stuart, Billy C. Clark, Janice Holt Giles, A.B. Guthrie, Jr., Hollis Summers, Ed McClanahan, Sallie Bingham, Robert Hazel, Jack Cady, Jim Wayne Miller, David Madden, Gayl Jones, Jane Stuart, Gurney Norman, Walter Tevis, Bobbie Ann Mason, Joe Ashby Porter, Leon V. Driskell, Mary Ann Taylor-Hall, Richard Cortez Day, Sena Jeter Naslund, Pat Carr, Wendell Berry, James Baker Hall, Lisa Koger, Barbara Kingsolver, Normandi Ellis, Guy Davenport, Kim Edwards, Chris Holbrook, Paul Griner, Chris Offutt, Dwight Allen, Crystal E. Wilkinson. Edited by Morris Allen Grubbs; with an introduction by Wade Hall and an afterword by Charles E. May.

Originally published in 1998 by the University Press of Kentucky.
In 1946, at the age of 41, Janice Holt Giles wrote her first novel. Although it took her only three months to complete the first draft, working at night so as not to conflict with her secretarial job, it was another four years before The Enduring Hills was published. Three years later, when her sixth novel appeared, Janice Holt Giles's works had accumulated sales of nearly two million copies. Between 1950 and 1975 she wrote twenty-four books, most of which were bestsellers, regularly reviewed in the New York Times, and selected for inclusion in popular book clubs. Her picture held pride of place in her literary agent's New York office, alongside those of Willa Cather, H.G. Wells, and Edith Wharton, yet until now there has been no biography of this immensely popular American writer. Humbly professing to be "just a good storyteller," Giles was a keen observer of life with great sensitivity, an ear for language, and a superb imagination. Her artistic achievements become even more remarkable when placed in the context of her often difficult personal struggles. Dianne Watkins Stuart, for years the acknowledged expert on Giles's work, has traced the path of her unique life. Stuart walked around the small house where Giles's brother was born and The Kinta Years (1973) had its origin, wandered through the yard where The Plum Thicket (1954) grew, and made countless trips to Adair County, Kentucky, to trace the trails of the Piney Ridge trilogy ( The Enduring Hills, Miss Willie, Tara's Healing) and seek out the day-to-day life of her later years. Stuart's long-anticipated biography provides both a narrative of Giles's life and an in-depth description of the art and commerce of American publishing in the middle years of the century.

Papers delivered and presentations made at the Giles symposium held May 17-18, 1991, Campbellsville College, Campbellsville, Kentucky. 58 pages.

The novels of Janice Holt Giles grew in part from her marriage to Kentuckian Henry Giles. That union and the couple's settling near Henry's boyhood home in Kentucky provided the source and inspiration for Janice's earliest books and influenced much of her later writing. Hello, Janice tells the story of how their marriage came about. 237 pages; illustrations; maps.

Proceedings of The Giles Symposium, held at Campbellsville University, Campbellsville, Kentucky, May 17-18, 1991. Literary criticism of the works of Janice Holt Giles. Also examines the work of Henry Giles, her husband, and his influence on her works.

M. A. Thesis. Murray State University. 144 leaves; illustrations; charts.

Archival material. Papers collected by Woodbridge for a proposed biographical/bibliographical dictionary of Ky. authors. The bulk of the papers consist of letters from authors giving details of their lives and work. Also included are newspaper clippings containing information on various authors. Authors include Richard A. Briggs, Billy Curtis Clark, Janice Holt Giles, James A. Jewell, Robbie Trent, Lowell A. Williams, and others.

Archival material. Housed at Northeastern State University. Contains a short bibliography of resources on Janice Holt Giles, Oklahoma author.

Housed at the Kentucky Historical Society.
This document is a typewritten letter from Janice Holt Giles to Bayless Hardin of the Kentucky Historical Society asking for more information on a "great emigration of girls" to Kentucky in 1781. The letter is dated October 5, 1954 and is signed by her hand.

Dawn Jewell is fifteen. She is restless, curious, and wry. She listens to Black Flag, speaks her mind, and joins her grandmother's fight against mountaintop removal mining almost in spite of herself. "I write by ear," says Robert Gipe, and Dawn's voice is the essence of his debut novel, Trampoline. She lives in eastern Kentucky with her addict mother and her Mamaw, whose stance against the coal companies has earned her the community's ire. Jagged and honest, Trampoline is a powerful portrait of a place struggling with the economic and social forces that threaten and define it. Inspired by oral tradition and punctuated by Gipe's raw and whimsical drawings, it is above all about its heroine, Dawn, as she decides whether to save a mountain or save herself; be ruled by love or ruled by anger; remain in the land of her birth or run for her life.

A finalist for the 2019 Weatherford Award in Fiction, Weedeater is a contemporary story of love and loss told by a pair of eastern Kentucky mountaineers: Gene, the lovelorn landscaper who bears witness to the misadventures of a family entangled in drugs, art-making, and politics, a family beset by both environmental and self-destruction; and Dawn Jewell, a young mother searching for lost family members, lost youth, lost community, and lost heart. Picking up six years after the end of Robert Gipe's acclaimed first novel, Trampoline, in Weedeater, the reader finds Canard County living through the last hurrah of the coal industry and the most turbulent and deadly phase of the community's battle with opioid abuse. The events Gipe chronicles are frantic. They are told through a voice by turns taciturn and angry, yet also balanced with humor and stoic grace. Weedeater is a story about how we put our lives back together when we lose the things we thought we couldn't bear losing, how we find new purpose in what we thought were scraps and trash caught in the weeds.

A coming-of-age story of hope, betrayal, and familial legacy set in rural Appalachia. Set in the run-up and aftermath of the 2016 election, Pop brings the Canard County trilogy to a close as Dawn, the young narrator of Gipe's first novel, Trampoline, is now the mother of the seventeen-year-old Nicolette. Whereas Dawn has become increasingly agoraphobic as the internet persuades her the world is descending into chaos, Nicolette narrates an Appalachia where young people start businesses rooted in local food culture and work to build community. But Nicolette's precocious rise in the regional culinary scene is interrupted when her policeman cousin violently assaults her, setting in motion a chain of events that threaten to destroy the family--and Canard County in the process. In the tradition of Gipe's first two novels, Pop's Appalachia is full of clear-eyed, caring, creative, and complicated people struggling to hang on to what is best about their world and reject what is not. Their adventures reflect an Appalachia that is overrun by outside commentators looking for stories to tell about the region--sometimes positive, sometimes negative, but almost always oversimplified.

Blue Ridge tacos, kimchi with soup beans and cornbread, family stories hiding in cookbook marginalia, African American mountain gardens--this wide-ranging anthology considers all these and more. Diverse contributors show us that contemporary Appalachian tables and the stories they hold offer new ways into understanding past, present, and future American food practices. The poets, scholars, fiction writers, journalists, and food professionals in these pages show us that what we eat gives a beautifully full picture of Appalachia, where it's been, and where it's going. Contributors: Courtney Balestier, Jessie Blackburn, Karida L. Brown, Danille Elise Christensen, Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle, Michael Croley, Elizabeth S. D. Engelhardt, Robert Gipe, Suronda Gonzalez, Emily Hilliard, Rebecca Gayle Howell, Abigail Huggins, Erica Abrams Locklear, Ronni Lundy, George Ella Lyon, Jeff Mann, Daniel S. Margolies, William Schumann, Lora E. Smith, Emily Wallace, Crystal Wilkinson

With hundreds of thousands of copies sold, a Ron Howard movie in the works, and the rise of its author as a media personality, J. D. Vance's Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis has defined Appalachia for much of the nation. What about Hillbilly Elegy accounts for this explosion of interest during this period of political turmoil? Why have its ideas raised so much controversy? And how can debates about the book catalyze new, more inclusive political agendas for the region's future? Appalachian Reckoning is a retort, at turns rigorous, critical, angry, and hopeful, to the long shadow Hillbilly Elegy has cast over the region and its imagining. But it also moves beyond Hillbilly Elegy to allow Appalachians from varied backgrounds to tell their own diverse and complex stories through an imaginative blend of scholarship, prose, poetry, and photography. The essays and creative work collected in Appalachian Reckoning provide a deeply personal portrait of a place that is at once culturally rich and economically distressed, unique and typically American. Complicating simplistic visions that associate the region almost exclusively with death and decay, Appalachian Reckoning makes clear Appalachia's intellectual vitality, spiritual richness, and progressive possibilities.

"Includes 16-page full-color photo insert Cop, Secret Service agent, private consultant, and bodyguard... Greg Gitschier has led an exciting life. He's protected presidents and royalty, tracked down international criminals, and cracked tough cases. An assignment to protect Pope John Paul II forever changed Greg's life, leading him down a path toward "sacred service." He now serves as a deacon in the Catholic Church, a police chaplain, and Secret Service chaplain. Sneakin' Deacon shares the raw, the routine, the gritty, and the grand moments of a life in both Secret Service and sacred service. In Greg Gitschier's 11 years as a cop, he worked undercover, caught bad guys, and joined car chases and shootouts. But the excitement ratcheted up when Gitschier launched his 20-year career with the Secret Service. He broke up international counterfeiting rings, arrested a notorious diamond thief, survived heart-pounding moments in the Middle East and Africa, and protected presidents, royalty, and celebrities. Gitschier's assignment to protect Pope John Paul II during the pontiff's 1999 visit to the United States forever changed his life. Gitschier stepped up his involvement in his church and eventually became a Catholic deacon, a police chaplain, and a chaplain for the US Secret Service. He continues to work as a private security consultant and bodyguard for high-profile clients. Sneakin' Deacon shares the raw, the routine, the gritty, and the grand moments of a life in both Secret Service and sacred service."--Amazon.com