Mariner Media

Buena Vista VA—Lena Cantrell McNicholas loves Southwest Virginia. In her first book, Patchwork—Pieces of Appalachia, she recalls the small Appalachian town of her childhood and the eclectic characters within it.

She wrote about her memories in a series of poems, stories and vignettes. Lena McNicholas has received numerous awards for her original work and was Poet of the Month for A Magazine December. She is an active member of the Appalachian Poets and Writers, the Blue Ridge Chapter of the Virginia Writers Club, Inc., and the Poetry Society of Virginia.

Elizabeth Doyle Solomon, author of Seasons, has said “McNicholas has written a book from her heart, for the hearts of us all. … Patchwork is a book for today that carries those precious pieces of yesterdays, a book to pass down to the inheritors of tomorrows.”

Lee Smith, author of Oral History and Fair and Tender Ladies, said, “This fine collection…takes us through Lena’s exciting life of love, adventure, devastating loss, high principles and new beginnings, finally back to her beloved southwest Virginia and the complexities of life alone—all of this told with severe honesty and sweet lyrical grace. Lena knows who she is and where she comes from, and she knows how to tell a good story, too. All you have to do is sit back and listen.”

In Voices from the Hollow Philip Hirsh captures the heart of America's two world system - the privileged and the working class. With the eyes of a child and the wisdom of a grown man, Hirsh explores the prejudices, universal racism of the time, elitist attitudes, and the true wealth and richness of rural American life that captivated his senses and forever shaped his belief system.

Hirsh's writing style makes you feel as if he's in your living room telling the hilariously funny, sometime poignant, and often revealing stories. The cultural divide that defined his early life as a young boy, following his family from suburban New York City to the family horse farm in the heart of Appalachia, is the soul of the book. With a family like his, how could Hirsh escape becoming a psychiatrist? You will develop a new and greater appreciation for your own family reading this entertaining book.

Over in the Country is a memoir about Paul and Eula Simms, remarkable people who never considered themselves remarkable, a rich collection of stories from their life on a farm in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia during the first half of the twentieth century. In 1904 Paul bought a hundred acres of raw land, mostly rolling hills, but with enough level ground for a house and a garden. To make their farm prosper, he and his bride Eula Rakes brought their experiences growing up in the country, their eagerness to try new ideas and inventions, their willingness to work hard, and their determination to succeed. Almost as essential was the pleasure they took in good fun, good food, and a healthy sense of humor. The memoir tells stories about Paul and Eula before they married, their efforts to make the farm pay, their four children, kinfolk and neighbors, church and school in an isolated mountain community. The small self-sufficient farms of earlier America are gone. Stories such as these help us remember our grandparents and connect us to our past.