Join us and two great Appalachian authors to talk about writing, history, and anything else you'd like to hear about.
Brett Lovell's new novel, A Bad and Dangerous Man, is based on the true story of the Hillsville, VA courthouse shootout. In 1911, a young man reignites a bitter political feud when he kisses the wrong girl at a corn shucking in the rural Appalachian Mountains of Virginia. Old grudges collide with corrupt politicians and culminate in a massacre inside of the county courthouse. The authorities blame members of the Allen Clan, a family of fiercely independent outlaws and moonshiners. The Governor of Virginia calls the shootout “the greatest crime in the history of Virginia, perhaps of the United States” and sends the Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency to lead the manhunt after the sheriff, prosecutor, and judge are murdered in the courtroom.
“A Bad and Dangerous Man is a taut, gripping novel about a simpler time that isn’t simple at all in the hardscrabble landscape of the Virginia mountains. This debut is packed with all the elements of a great, Southern burner: greed, murder, and an unforgettable cast of moonshiners and outlaws.”
—Scott Blackburn, author of It Dies With You
Chris McGinley is the author of Once These Hills - It’s 1898. Up on Black Boar Mountain in eastern Kentucky, life is quiet for the small settlement of farmers who work the land around their cabins. But when 10-year-old Lydia King unearths an ancient, preserved body on the seep bog, a curse is let loose. At least that’s what some people believe. Down in the valley, the railroad uses convict labor to lay track, hell-bent on timbering all of the hillside. Problem is, a trio of violent prisoners feel the work ain’t exactly to their liking. Behind their ring leader Burr Hollis, a predatory, sadistic man whose name inspires fear among the hardest of criminals, they take to the hills and leave a wake of their own. In the years following, Lydia falls in love and marries a mountain boy, but when Burr Hollis returns for a reckoning with her, she’ll need all of her huntress skills just to stay alive.
“Once These Hills is a powerful literary thriller that often reads like an ode to the natural world and Appalachia itself. Every sentence is lyrical, and Lydia is an unforgettable new addition to the pantheon of remarkable women in Appalachian literature.”
—Silas House, author of Southern Most and Lark Ascending