MOUNT VERNON – Appalachian author Alison Stine will discuss her novel “Trashlands” on Tuesday, June 21, from 6:30-8 p.m. at the main library’s outdoor annex/west parking lot.
The talk, moderated by Kenyon College English professor Orchid Tierney, is part of the public library’s Ohio Writer Series. Several copies of the book for a free giveaway are still available at the library while supplies last.
According to a press release, “Trashlands” is a futuristic novel about Coral, a woman who salvages plastic after an environmental disaster leaves Appalachian Ohio in a state of collapse. Coral seeks solace in making art and finding beauty in a dangerous, frightening world. Desperate to reunite with a son who was trafficked into factory work, Coral must decide what she’s willing to risk to save her family.
The Los Angeles Times called it a “ballad to love in a time of darkness,” and the novel is currently longlisted for the 2022 Reading the West Book Award.
A native of Southern Ohio, Stine also wrote the novel “Road Out of Winter,” a selection for The Rumpus Book Club, and won the 2021 Philip K. Dick Award in science fiction. She has published three poetry collections and a novella. Her next novel, “Dust,” will be published by Wednesday Books (Macmillan) in the fall of 2023. Her awards include an Individual Artist Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, an Ohio Arts Council grant, a Sustainable Arts grant and a National Geographic reporting grant. Stine was a Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University and a Ruth Lilly Fellow from the Poetry Foundation and received the Studs Terkel Award for Media and Journalism. Partially deaf, she writes as the staff culture writer for Salon and has also reported for The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, 100 Days in Appalachia and more.
Upcoming Ohio Writers Series events include Marcus Jackson (July 12), Joey Kim and Ayendy Bonifacio (Aug. 9), and Ira Sukrungruang (Sept. 20). The library’s reading series is a collaboration with the Mount Vernon Arts Consortium, the Kenyon Review and the Kenyon College Office for Community Partnerships.
Reservations are encouraged but not required for this program. Visit knox.net, email knoxwrites1@gmail.com or call 740-392-BOOK, ext. 259, for more information. The library is at 201 N. Mulberry St., and the alternative site for the reading in case of rain is Urton Clockhouse in Ariel-Foundation Park.
