Participation Type
Performance
Session Title
New Angles of Vision on Regional Expression: Readings from Old Cove Press
Session Abstract or Summary
The authors of three new books from Kentucky's Old Cove Press--Gurney Norman, Carrie Mullins, and Pam Oldfield Meade--will present from their original work. The books will be made available to the public for the first time at the Appalachian Studies Conference. Lead presenter Gurney Norman will read from his book, The Finley County Record, which mixes fictional and autobiographical stories. In this book, Norman experiments with style and format, pushing the limits of form. Carrie Mullins will read from her novel Marie, which renders the inner experience of a young eastern Kentucky woman who runs away from home after her brother dies. She settles in with the Owens family, a wild, entrepreneurial and criminal family in neighboring Crawford County. The daughter of business leaders in the conservative college town of Bethel, Marie substitutes the Owens family for her own, until their criminal ventures threaten her own life. Pam Oldfield Meade will discuss and show work from The Things We See: Paintings by Pam Oldfield Meade. A painter from Morgan County, Kentucky, Meade will share images of her paintings and speak about the stories that inspired them. She often brings a literary level of expression to her work by writing words on her canvas, partially visible, sometimes written as stream of consciousness. The canvas offers a multilayered expression of her artistic vision—the outer expression of a landscape or person or community scene, but also the whisper of her inner voice.
Presentation #1 Title
The Finley County Record: A Reading by Gurney Norman
Presentation #1 Abstract or Summary
Lead presenter Gurney Norman will read from his new book, The Finley County Record, which mixes fictional and autobiographical stories. In this book, Norman experiments with style and format, pushing the limits of form.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #1
Gurney Norman is the author of Divine Right’s Trip, Kinfolks, and Ancient Creek. He is co-editor of Back Talk: Confronting Appalachian Stereotypes and An American Vein: Critical Readings in Appalachian Literature.
Presentation #2 Title
Marie: A Reading by Carrie Mullins
Presentation #2 Abstract or Summary
Carrie Mullins will read from her novel Marie, which renders the inner experience of a young eastern Kentucky woman who runs away from home after her brother dies. She settles in with the Owens family, a wild, entrepreneurial and criminal family in neighboring Crawford County. The daughter of business leaders in the conservative college town of Bethel, Marie substitutes the Owens family for her own, until their criminal ventures threaten her own life.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #2
Carrie Mullins lives in Mt. Vernon, Kentucky. Her novel Marie will be published by Old Cove Press in spring 2016. She was awarded a 2015 Kentucky Foundation for Women Artist Enrichment Grant to travel to Croatia to research her next novel. Her fiction has been published in Chicago Quarterly Review, Appalachian Heritage, Kudzu, and in the anthology Appalachia Now: Short Stories of Contemporary Appalachia (Bottom Dog Press, 2015).
Presentation #3 Title
Pam Meade discusses The Things We See: Paintings by Pam Oldfield Meade
Presentation #3 Abstract or Summary
Pam Oldfield Meade will discuss and show work from the new collection of her art entitled The Things We See: Paintings by Pam Oldfield Meade. A painter from Morgan County, Kentucky, Meade will share images of her paintings and speak about the stories that inspired them—stories of her Appalachian community and region, stories of people she knows, stories of her inner imagination. She often brings another level of expression to her work by writing words on her canvas, partially visible, sometimes written as stream of consciousness. The canvas offers a multilayered expression of her artistic vision—the outer expression of a landscape or person or community scene, but also the whisper of her inner voice. As an artist, she is inspired by “things of beauty, things of past, people good and bad, places I go sometimes only in a dream, and always where I live and work.”
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #3
Pam Oldfield Meade has been a working artist and community arts advocate for over 30 years in Morgan County, located in eastern Kentucky. Color, contrast, text and texture play an integral role in her painting and mixed media works which are informed by tradition, storytelling, and personal experience. She has exhibited widely throughout the Appalachian region. Her work will be featured in the forthcoming book The Things We See: Paintings by Pam Oldfield Meade (Old Cove Press, Spring 2016).
The Finley County Record: A Reading by Gurney Norman
Lead presenter Gurney Norman will read from his new book, The Finley County Record, which mixes fictional and autobiographical stories. In this book, Norman experiments with style and format, pushing the limits of form.
