Book Your Lunch with Ron Rash February 15, 2011

Bring your Valentine to meet beloved Southern author Ron Rash, returning to Greenville for the paperback release of his latest award-winning short-story collection, Burning Bright (Ecco, paperback, $12.99).

Burning Bright, Rash’s latest short story collection, was chosen as a Winter/Spring 2010 Okra pick by the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance. It also won the €35,000 (US$45,740) 2010 Frank O’Connor Award for the best short story collection published in English.

In “Corpse Bird,” a man becomes haunted by a childhood folk tale when a mysterious bird makes its home in his neighbor’s tree and their daughter suddenly takes ill. In “Back of Beyond,” a pawn shop owner who profits from the stolen goods of local meth addicts—including his own nephew—comes to his brother’s aid when he’s threatened by his son. The pregnant wife of a Lincoln sympathizer alone in Confederate territory takes revenge to protect her family from a menacing wayward soldier in “Lincolnites.”

Rash masterfully crafts a patchwork of luminous stories, rich in beauty, suspense, and violence, that draw from the mythical, mysterious, and rawness of the people and the landscape of Appalachia.

About the author:
Ron Rash is the author of the New York Times bestselling novel Serena, which was a finalist for the 2009 PEN/Faulkner Award, as well as three other prizewinning novels, One Foot in Eden, Saints at the River, and The World Made Straight; three collections of poems; and three collections of stories, including Chemistry and Other Stories, which was a finalist for the 2007 PEN/Faulkner Award. Twice a recipient of the O. Henry Prize, Rash teaches at Western Carolina University.

Official Website: http://www.bookyourlunch.com