Participation Type
Performance
Presentation #1 Title
The Luck of the Appalachians
Presentation #1 Abstract or Summary
The Luck of the Appalachians
I grew up in northeast Appalachia, in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania. In my memoir, Luck of the Appalachians, I recount my experiences growing up in the mountains as a boy. Although I lived there until I was eighteen, my memoir is on the first ten years of my life and addresses both the economic hardships my family faced and the simple beauty of the land and my family.
I now live in Cincinnati, an urban Appalachian by a circuitous route, and would like to share selections of my writing. My experiences come from a marginal space, the northeast edge of Appalachia. I believe the attendees would find my writings, which discuss questions of class, race, and family, informative and enjoyable. My story is not a tale of hard-living, but of hard times for loving people. I speak most directly from my own experiences, but aspire to be a voice for hard-working folks all over Appalachia.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #1
Tom Strunk grew up in northeast Appalachia in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania. He is currently a professor of Classical Studies at Xavier University in Cincinnati. He is the author of the scholarly monograph History after Liberty: Tacitus on Tyrants, Sycophants, and Republicans. He is finishing a memoir, The Luck of the Appalachians, on growing up as a trailer park kid in Pennsylvania.
The Luck of the Appalachians
The Luck of the Appalachians
I grew up in northeast Appalachia, in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania. In my memoir, Luck of the Appalachians, I recount my experiences growing up in the mountains as a boy. Although I lived there until I was eighteen, my memoir is on the first ten years of my life and addresses both the economic hardships my family faced and the simple beauty of the land and my family.
I now live in Cincinnati, an urban Appalachian by a circuitous route, and would like to share selections of my writing. My experiences come from a marginal space, the northeast edge of Appalachia. I believe the attendees would find my writings, which discuss questions of class, race, and family, informative and enjoyable. My story is not a tale of hard-living, but of hard times for loving people. I speak most directly from my own experiences, but aspire to be a voice for hard-working folks all over Appalachia.
