Sports in the Carolinas, featuring an article by Sharyn McCrumb Sports in the Carolinas
 Sharyn wrote the article on NASCAR legend Dale Earnhardt in Sports in the Carolinas, a new book from Novello Press (May 2009), edited by Ed Southern. Earnhardt, a seven-time NASCAR Cup Champion, was the central presence in Sharyn's award-winning novel St. Dale, a modern homage to The Canterbury Tales, set in NASCAR.
 
http://www.blairpub.com/history/SportsintheCarolinas.htm
 
From Sharyn McCrumb
 In the current issue of Blue Ridge Country Magazine there is an article on NASCAR that mentions the new novel I've written with Adam Edwards, Faster Pastor. We are quoted in the article, talking about the current state of motorsports. The issue also contains the article I wrote on NASCAR legend Curtis Turner.
 
St. Dale in Colleges and Secondary Schools
 Sharyn McCrumb's novel St. Dale is being taught in colleges and secondary schools in six states as a supplementary text to Chaucer, or as a Southern novel in its own right. In November, she gave a program on using St. Dale as a text at the annual conference of the National Association of Teachers of English in San Antonio. To see her discussion of the cultural uses of a novel about NASCAR for English classes, see the paper on St. Dale.
 
McCrumb Awarded Silver Citation
 Sharyn McCrumb has been awarded the Silver citation for Best Mountain Writer by Blue Ridge Country Magazine, as noted in its "Best of the Blue Ridge" edition. (Read more.)
 
 
Click here to learn more about lectures and workshops offered by Sharyn McCrumb.
 
Radford University English Classes
 On April 7th, Sharyn McCrumb spoke to two of Prof. JoAnn Asbury's English classes who are studying her novels at Radford University. She discussed the Ballad novels and St. Dale, using PowerPoint for the first time - with technical assistance from her daughter Laura.
 
 
 
 
 
Sharyn McCrumb visited a class in Rocky Mount, VA.
 
Sharyn Speaks at 1900 Literary Club in Bristol, Virginia
On Tuesday, March 24, Sharyn gave a talk on her work for the 1900 Literary Club in Bristol VA, as a token of thanks to club member Mary Beth Raniero, who graciously invites Sharyn to watch the NASCAR races at Bristol Motor Speedway in her skybox.
Sharyn McCrumb visited a class in Rocky Mount, VA.
 
Blue Ridge Writers Conference
Sharyn McCrumb and Cosmic-Possum creator Jane Hicks were featured speakers at the Blue Ridge Writers Conference in Blue Ridge, Georgia on March 27-28. St. Dale is dedicated to Jane, who is an award-winning poet and was Sharyn's first NASCAR mentor.
 
 
 
 
 
Featured Author at First RU Literary Festival
Sharyn McCrumb, at the first RU Literary Festival.On Saturday, March 21, Sharyn was a featured author at the First Radford University Literary Festival in Radford, Virginia.
 
From here she goes on to speak to a book club in Bristol Tennessee about her NASCAR novels, to Wingate University in North Carolina as a featured author, and to the Blue Ridge Writers Workshop in North Georgia.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Classroom Visit in Rocky Mount, Virginia
 Sharyn McCrumb visited a class in Rocky Mount, VA.In February, Sharyn McCrumb visited with a class in Rocky Mount, VA studying The Ballad of Frankie Silver. Pictured here beside the Frankie Silver quilt (made by Jane Hicks) are students from Catherine Spence's Survey of American Literature Class at Christian Heritage Academy: (l to r) Ashley Kidd, Conner Jones, and Breanne Calahan. Kneeling: Jaki Martin.
 
 
 
Sharyn Selected as 2008 Virginia Women in History Honoree
 The Library of Virginia has announced that Sharyn McCrumb has been named one of Virginia's eight Women of History for 2008. This honor, designed to recognize and honor the achievements of women who have made important contributions to Virginia and America, both past and present, is celebrated at a reception in Richmond on March 27th at the Library of Virginia, 800 E. Broad Street.
 
Sharyn McCrumb, 2008 Virginia Women in History honoree.Sharyn McCrumb is being recognized for her achievements in literature as a New-York Times best-selling Appalachian writer, who won the 2006 Library of Virginia People’s Choice Award and the AWA Book of the Year Award for her NASCAR-themed novel St. Dale. McCrumb’s other honors include: the Wilma Dykeman Award for Literature given by the East Tennessee Historical Society; AWA Outstanding Contribution to Appalachian Literature Award; the Chaffin Award for Achievement in Southern Literature; the Plattner Award for Short Story; and AWA’s Best Appalachian Novel. She is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and received her M.A. in English from Virginia Tech.
 
She was the first writer-in-residence at King College in Tennessee. In 2001 she served as fiction writer-in-residence at the WICE Conference in Paris, and in 2005 she was honored as the writer of the year at the annual literary celebration at Emory and Henry College. Sharyn McCrumb has lectured on her work at Oxford University, the Smithsonian Institution, the University of Bonn, Germany, and at universities and libraries throughout the country.
 
The seven other Women in History for this year are: Frances Culpeper Stevens Berkeley Ludwell, a colonial leader of the Green Spring Faction; Edith Turner, 18th century chief of the Nottoway; 19th century civic leader Lucy Goode Brooks; Dale City community activist Providencia Velasquez Gonzalez; Isabel Wood Rogers, moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA); acclaimed artist Patricia Buckley Moss; and VA Supreme Court Justice Elizabeth Bermingham Lacy. View a poster depicting the 2008 Virginia Women in History. To request a free poster, go to the Library of Virginia web site.
 
In addition to the formal recognition at the March 27 reception, the honorees are also featured in a traveling exhibition available to Virginia libraries and schools free of charge.
 
For more information visit the Library of Virginia's web site. Read an article about the honor at OurValley.org.
 
 
Hollywood Comes to the Blue Ridge
 Sharyn McCrumb's Day with the Producer and Director
 
"On January 25th, I spent a delightful day playing tour guide in the snow to producer Rebecca Tudor-Foley of Lizcat Films and Roberto Schaefer, a director from Hollywood. They are making a movie of my novel The Rosewood Casket, and they were scouting locations around Asheville and in southwest Virginia.
 
 
Photo of Director Roberto Schaefer checking out a house on Route 42 just past Newport.
 
Director Roberto Schaefer checking out
a house on Rt. 42 just past Newport.
Roberto Schaefer, who is making his directorial debut on The Rosewood Casket, was nominated for a British Academy Award for cinematography for the Johnny Depp movie Finding Neverland, and he worked as cinematographer on Monsters Ball with Halle Berry and Billy Bob Thornton. He just got back from China where he was filming The Kite Runner.
 
Playing tour guide for them was a joy. I was fully prepared to be polite and humble before Jon Lovitz in a velvet smoking jacket and Foster Grants, but the first thing Roberto said to me was, "I hear you're into NASCAR. I'm a Formula One guy, and I used to film road race courses." Be still my heart.
 
So we talked about Juan Montoya going into Cup racing, and I told him about my ridealong in a race car last summer at Lowes Motor Speedway. We had a great time. It's probably a good thing he did have professional driving experience, because we spent all day zipping over steep mountain roads in the snow in a four-wheel drive. In order to take them to lunch in Paint Bank, in the restaurant that has a swinging bridge and a trout stream inside it, we had to cross a very high icy mountain, where one skid would have meant that we would become not only history but geography.
 
On Rt. 42 in Craig County, I showed them the old farmhouse that — in my imagination — really was the Stargill farmstead in The Rosewood Casket, and New Castle, Virginia looks the way I always pictured Hamelin in the Ballad novels. So they have now seen the movie-in-my-head.
 
We did talk about casting, and they are considering some impressive actors for this movie — which I probably shouldn't mention, because nothing is set in stone, yet, but they hope to finish the film this year. That's all I really know at this point. But showing them around was a wonderful adventure, and I hope they choose to shoot the film here in Virginia."
- Sharyn McCrumb
 
Recent Articles by Sharyn McCrumb
 When Mountain Homes Magazine asked Sharyn McCrumb to write an essay about some aspect of Appalachian living, she thought of the apple-butter making tradition of the local Ruritan club of which her husband is a member. This led into a meditation on the traditional varieties of pre-20th century apples, species still being preserved and cultivated by Urban Homestead, a small family-run orchard in Bristol, VA.
 
Sharyn has some of their trees growing on her farm, as a wonderful way to keep the past alive, and she highly recommends the Urban Homestead catalog and web-site description of apple varieties, which is an education in itself.
 
Sharyn's article Comfort Me With Apples was published in the Winter 2007 issue of Mountain Homes Magazine. Download article. (pdf file)
 
Sharyn McCrumb's article on Tom Dooley (Tom Dula), originally published in Blue Ridge Country Magazine, has been reprinted in a new book: Making Notes Music in the Carolinas by Ann Wicker (Charlotte NC, Novello Press, 2008.) Click here for ordering information.
 
In the article, "Bound to Die," Sharyn McCrumb and a school friend met in Wilkes County, North Carolina and spent the day on the trail of legendary mountain murderer Tom Dula, made famous by the folk song "Hang Down your Head, Tom Dooley." Sharyn and David visited the graves, examined the scenes in case, the site of the hanging in Statesville, and they spent the day trying to figure out what really happened to Laura Foster on May 25, 1866. Read the article on the Blue Ridge Country Magazine web site.
 
Short Stories by Sharyn McCrumb are Featured in the Following New Publications:

Poe -- 19 New Tales Inspired by Edgar Allan Poe  (Solaris Press, 2009), a short story anthology in tribute to the centennial of Edgar Allan Poe.

"Standouts among the stories ... include Sharyn McCrumb's The Mountain House... McCrumb's story is inspired by Poe's poem "The Haunted Palace," an appreciation of the Georgia mountains and her love of NASCAR, as seen through the lens of her friend Dale Earnhardt, model for the protagonist's deceased husband. It's a story of love, loss, friendship and hope, set against the rich backdrop of north Georgia."
    - GreenmanReview.com/book/book_datlow_poe.html

(Sharyn McCrumb notes: "In the afterword, I said that the story was inspired by a NASCAR driver friend, but it was not, as the reviewer assumed, Dale Earnhardt. The inspiration for the driver in this story was 2002 Daytona 500 winner Ward Burton.")

The Mountain House - The widow of a NASCAR driver retreats to her north Georgia vacation home, and finds that it is indeed "close to heaven." A recent review from livejournal.com: "The Mountain House, by Sharyn McCrumb, Poe - a quiet, compelling story of a NASCAR widow and her brush with the unknown."

"The Mountain House by Sharyn McCrumb is a very W. P. (Ray) Kinsella (Shoeless Joe, filmed as Field Of Dreams) type of dark fantasy/magical tale as narrated by the widow of a former NASCAR driver and champion who lives on a mountain in rural Georgia. Yet another exceptional read." www.HorrorWorld.org/reviews.htm
 

Blood Lite, An anthology of short stories edited by Kevin J. Anderson - Pocket Books, 2008.
"Dead Hand." "You can do NASCAR," said Sharyn's friend, the best-selling science fiction author Kevin J. Anderson, who was putting together anthology of humorous, spooky stories. She couldn't resist it. What followed (with a little help from a couple of NASCAR drivers) was the story of a struggling racing team who used a little Cherokee magic to help them compete against the rich and powerful teams in NASCAR.

Has appeared on the bestseller pages in both the December and January issues of Locus.

Bestseller #2 on B&N/Dalton
Bestseller #3 on Borders
Bestseller #4 on Locus
 
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