Road Scholars Speakers Bureau

Sherry Austin, B.A. 

Award-winning fiction and non-fiction author

Flat Rock, NC

H: (828) 698-5669

sherry@sherryaustin.com

www.sherryaustin.com

Travel regions: 1–5

About Sherry Austin:

Sherry Austin is the author of four works of fiction: The Comforter: A Ghost Tale of Flat Rock, the Little Charleston of the Mountains; The Days Between the Years, which was a finalist for the Willie Morris Award for Southern Fiction; Where the Woodbine Twines, Honorable Mention in Foreword Magazine’s Book of the Year Award; and Mariah of the Spirits: And Other Southern Ghost Stories, recipient of several awards. She has received two literary fellowships from the North Carolina Arts Council, one for fiction and one for literary nonfiction. She has also received an award and residency from the Blumenthal Foundation; a nomination for fiction for the Sir Walter Raleigh Award, and a nomination for the Appalachian Book of the Year Award. She is also a member of the National League of American Pen Women, and the Southern Arts Federation.

The Audacious and the Fantastic: The Art of Southern Gothic

Author Joyce Carol Oates has said, "The surreal, raised to the level of poetry, is the very essence of gothic." But what is the genre called Southern gothic, often identified with Faulkner and Flannery O'Connor? In classic gothic literature, mad monks skulk around in crumbling castles. In Southern gothic, outsiders and misfits act out their bizarre destinies in the decayed atmosphere of a faded aristocracy or in rural desolation. What are the differences and the similarities between the various forms of gothic and the kind of gothic with its roots in the American South? What is the appeal of Southern gothic? In this program, Sherry Austin, author of the 2006 Southern gothic novel Where the Woodbine Twines, will talk about this uniquely American facet of the genre Oates said "displays the range, depth, audacity and fantastical extravagance of the human imagination."

Program requirements: lectern, microphone