Book Description
Part memoir, part literary history, Scribblers provides a humorous look at the world of wannabe authors while documenting the surprisingly rich literary tradition of the area around Asheville, North Carolina. In this book, Stephen Kirk, whose self-deprecating humor is reminiscent of a Woody Allen-like character, discusses this tradition while describing his own writing experiences. Intertwined with Kirk's descriptions of his frustrations as his research misfires or leads to dead ends are insights about writing gleaned from interviews with such contemporary authors as Gail Godwin, Robert Morgan, Fred Chappell, and Sharyn McCrumb as well as insights into the lives of such famous authors as Thomas Wolfe, Carl Sandburg, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and O. Henry, who lived and wrote in the area.
About the Author
Stephen Kirk, a graduate of the MFA program at UNC-Greensboro, has been the editor-in-chief at John F. Blair, Publisher, for 16 years. He is the author of First in Flight: The Wright Brothers in North Carolina. He lives in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
Scribblers: Stalking the Authors of Appalachia FROM THE PUBLISHER
In the small mountain city of Asheville, North Carolina, Thomas Wolfe lies at eternal rest just a few steps from William Sydney Porter, better known as O. Henry. Those graves are a short hop from the great inn where F. Scott Fitzgerald tried to dictate his writing from a body cast, and a half-hour's drive from the estate where the aged Carl Sandburg wrote deep into the night.
The city's ties to the world of letters are equally strong today. Gail Godwin and Charles Frazier were schooled in Asheville, for example, and Robert Morgan and Fred Chappell in the immediate area. Stephen Kirk, author of Scribblers, is an editor and would-be literary gadfly. Taking Asheville as his canvas, he learns stories of the area's legendary authors and interviews some of its contemporary greats. Meanwhile, he also seeks out writers living in the shadows of the famous. He meets genre authors who make their living penning romances, Westerns, and mysteries. He immerses himself in the culture of writers' groups and conferences, exploring the hopes and frustrations of the unpublished and self-published. For every well-known author, there are a thousand folks laboring in obscurity. What drives them so hard, given such a remote likelihood of success? Scribblers is ultimately a humorous, sympathetic examination of the writer's urge, set against the background of a noted literary town. Its Woody Allenstyle narrator, who wants to be in the club as badly as the rest, casts a critical eye on his own efforts as he flubs a few interviews, commits a faux pas here and there, and gradually finds his way.
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