"This work is unlike any other, in its range of rich, conjuring imagery and its dexterity, its smart voice. Carroll-Hackett doesn’t spare us—but doesn’t save us—she draws a blueprint of power and class with her unflinching pivot: matter-of-fact and tender." —Jan Beatty

Must Read Monday! Doug Van Gundy: A Life Above Water

May 30, 2016

 

VanGundyThis week meet Doug Van Gundy, author of A Life Above Water. Doug teaches in both the BA and MFA writing programs at West Virginia Wesleyan College. His poems, essays and reviews have appeared in The Oxford American, Poems & Plays, Ecotone, Appalachian Heritage, Waccamaw and Poetry Salzburg Review. He is currently co-editing an anthology of contemporary writing from West Virginia for WVU Press and working on his second book of poems, tentatively titled, No Dog Inside.

Doug has also has been an elephant keeper, a copywriter, a country radio disk jockey, a letterpress operator, a television game show winner, and is a multi-talented musician. He’s an incredible old-time fiddler (along with playing a kajillion other instruments), performing with Paul Gartner in the duo Born Old.

Buy Doug’s beautiful book!

http://redhen.org/book/?uuid=F6650841-8509-33C3-0C69-129FD872CC95

Praise for A Life Above Water

Doug Van Gundy s poems are pitch-perfect and packed with indelible images, each as striking and distinct as a hawk in a clear blue sky above one of his beloved mountains. This poet has a genius for quick characterization, too; I love his crow-eyed bachelor men/who lived on the hillside and smelled/of fried potatoes and machine oil, for instance. Some of these poems are like whole novels. Doug Van Gundy has captured a culture in this book. –Lee Smith

More about Doug, poetry and music, at his website

http://www.dougvangundy.com/

Learn More About Doug’s Music and Born Old

https://www.facebook.com/bornoldband

http://www.countysales.com/products.php?product=DOUG-VAN-GUNDY-%26-PAUL-GARTNER-%27Born-Old%27

Read More from Doug Online

http://www.connotationpress.com/featured-guest-editor/poetry-october-2009/137-doug-van-gundy-poetry

http://www.storysouth.com/poetry/2008/06/west_virginia_vs_extractive_in.html

http://www.fishousepoems.org/keeper/

http://appalachianheritage.net/author/dougvangundy/

http://www.datelinewheeling.com/blog/2015/10/22/music-and-muse-mountaineer-poet-says-the-two-meld-perfectly

Hear Doug Read

https://soundcloud.com/storyweb/doug-van-gundy-a-beautiful-jar-of-jelly

And Play!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WeOj7nLF3_Y

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnKAOWSO410

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZisqgmidCc

 

 

Happy Reading!

xo

Mary

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Category:

Art, Artists, Bless the Day, Creativity, Family, Gratitude, Love, Music, Must Read Monday, Must Read Writers, One Love, poetry, Writing

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