- Hi, I'm Kirk Swenson.

Here at Ideas Fest in Asheville, North Carolina.

In this next program, we get to experience a live taping of a favorite local podcast.

Here from best-selling North Carolina author's Wiley Cash and Ron Rash on Ideas Fest.

- [Announcer] Quality public television is made possible through the financial contributions of viewers like you.

Who invite you to join them in supporting PBS NC.

[chill music] - Without further ado, I wanna bring my friend Ron Rash to the stage.

[audience applauding] Ron is the "New York Times" best-selling author of, by my account, about 20 books.

Story collections, novels, collections of poetry, and even a children's book.

He's been a recipient, or finalist, for a number of the, the most prestigious prizes in the literary world.

The O. Henry Prize, the PEN/Faulkner Award, and the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award.

An he has been a long-time professor of fiction writing and Appalachian studies at the other university in our region.

That is slowly growing in size, despite you know, everything against the headwinds.

But something that I'm really excited about, is this October, Ron is going to be inducted into the North Carolina Literary Hall of Fame which is- [audience applauding] Very, very deserved.

[audience applauding] So Ron, thank you so much for joining us.

- I'm glad to be here.

- I really, really appreciate it.

- So can you tell us, just starting out, and we'll spend this segment of our time together this morning talking about your career, and some of your previous works, and your time in the region, and your family.

So, can you start out telling us a little bit about your family's history in the region, and what kind of impressions that history left on you?

- Well, it's fitting that I'm here because my father's family is from Buckingham County.

They've been in this area since about late 1700s in the Lester community, if you know where that is.

So that certainly has had a big impact on me.

And my mother's family from an area between Boiling Rock and Boon.

So they've, once again, long history there.

And that's certainly played a big impact.

Interestingly enough, I was actually born in Chester, South Carolina.

Because my parents actually, both coming out of the mountains to work in the cotton mill.

And we did move back up when I was a child.

And I think one thing Wiley's done with the last ballad is really capture that world of the cotton mill so brilliantly.

We share some of that connection.

But yeah, this area, and I always felt that there was enough here, and I found this to be true, enough for a lifetime.

And I think Sherwood Anderson once told William Faulkner that you're just a country boy, all you know is this little patch of land in North Mississippi, but if you're serious enough about being a writer, you'll have enough there.

And I read that advice when I was in my early 20s.

And I've kind of followed that.

And I think one thing that we share, and so many North Carolina writers, I think this is true, that as [indistinct] once said, "One place comprehended makes us understand "all the other places better."

And you know, whenever I hear the term "regional," kind of used in a diminishing way, I always say James Joyce's "Ulysses" is the most regional novel I know.

[audience laughing] - And I'm gonna ask you about that regional moniker a little bit later.

So growing up in Boiling Springs, and then spending so much time up in Watauga County, do you remember your early impressions of storytelling with your family?

Like I grew up in a family, my dad just told outrageous lies all the time.

And I believed a lot of them.

And, like my dad's name was Roger Cash.

And he worked at Revco.

And he told me one day that the employees at the store he managed had created a drink called R.C.

Cola, named after him.

[all laughing] And I went to school, and showed it for show and tell.

"This is my dad's soda."

[audience laughing] And my mom got called like, "Your son has trouble telling the truth."

[audience laughing] And that is still true.

But now I get paid to do it, and y'all buy the books.

They're out there in the hallway.

Ron's are, too.

- Yep.

- But, do you remember your early experiences with narrative, or storytelling, or hearing stories, or seeing the power of stories to kind of resurrect, or animate places that had been left behind?

Especially for your parents down in those mill villages?

- Yeah, definitely.

I think particularly, I spent so much of my childhood, I was a weird kid, I just loved being with my grandmother up near Boon.

And I would spend most of my summers there.

She and I would be alone on the farm.

And so, I got to hang around and be around a lot of my older relatives.

And they were telling wonderful stories.

And one thing that they gave me, and I think was very valuable, was with the folklore, the sense of mystery.

That there's always more in the world.

I can remember my grandmother would never allow me to, I loved to catch salamanders and crayfish.

And she would never let me go near the spring house.

And there was this kind of almost ritualistic idea of not.

And I didn't realize, it's like, you don't wanna disturb the spirits of the water.

But, as with a lot of folklore, there was something really interesting going on with it.

Years later I would read that in Germany, when they had a water supply in a small village, they would keep a trout in the water supply.

So the idea is that, on one end my grandmother was saying that as long as those salamanders and crayfish are healthy, our water is healthy.

And that's that kind of writing spider, the idea that they would write messages.

And I never lost that sense of mystery.

And also, just hearing those stories.

But the other thing, and that I found very valuable was the language.

One thing that's interesting about a lot of folk language, whether it's Appalachian Gullah, is that I think sometimes they're viewed as being very unsophisticated.

But one thing I found about Appalachian, the dialect I heard growing up, and the language was, a delight in saying something, and that memorable phrase.

And the best example, when I was about 12; no, I was older, I was old enough to where I noticed an Appalachian co-ed, I was 16.

And she was walking down the street.

And rather scantly-clad by my uncle's standards.

[audience laughing] And he saw me looking at her.

And he turned to me and said, "That girl hasn't got enough clothes on to wad a shotgun."

[audience laughing] And I could remember when I was at graduate school, we were talking about what makes poetic language.

And he nailed it.

Everything, we kept, just kind of taking this almost outrageous kind of simile, and yet it works.

So yeah, all that.

- And, I love what you just said about delight in language.

And that's something that I could recall.

I'm thinking about like, Rob Amberg's photo book, "Sodom Laurel Album."

And the recording that came along with that.

And some of the, Sheila K. Adams.

And just telling these delightful tales, these mountain tales about violence and loss.

But doing so in a way that is like Emily Dickinson says, "Tell all truth, but tell it slant."

But they tell the truth, but they put a little light in the darkness.

And I think your work does that, as well.

- Well, I hope so.

- Yeah, and also the trout in the trough, in the spring house shows up in "The Caretaker," as well.

So, we'll talk about that a little bit this afternoon.

I remember, Ron, when I was a younger writer, younger than I am now, certainly, coming across your work.

Coming across "One Foot in Eden."

It's probably the first thing I read from you.

And it was a similar thing as an undergraduate here, came across Ernest Gaines story collection, "Bloodline," down in the university bookstore.

And I remember, I was a sophomore when I found "Bloodline."

And going back to my dorm room over there in Scott Hall, and reading those stories.

And even though Ernest Gaines was a Black man born on a plantation in 1933, he talked about land, and landscape, and old people, the way my grandparents talked about land and landscape, and old people.

And it was the first time that I felt like someone was writing, maybe not necessarily in a language of navicular, but with an interest that I had grown up.

And then when I read your work, "One Foot in Eden," or one of those other slightly older era-set stories, just thinking this is exactly what my grandparents said.

This is exactly how they talked.

This is what my dad's voice sounds like.

Were there experiences like that for you?

I mean, I imagine growing up in Boiling Springs, and spending summers in Watauga, you weren't necessarily coming across Wilma Dykeman, or John Ehle.

But, was there a moment when you came across an Appalachian voice, or a Southern voice, on the page where it made you feel as if, "Oh, there's space for me, they've gone ahead."

For me to follow behind.

There's a space here.

Yeah, and actually that's interesting that you bring up Ernest Gaines.

Because he was a, I also write short stories.

And that collection, there's a story in there, I think one of the great American short stories, "The Skies Grow."

- Yeah, that's a great story.

- Perfect short story.

And certainly, I read him.

And I had the, he had that effect on me.

I mean, he opened up possibilities.

And then when I read his novels, as well, "Gathering of Old Men," those novels were important.

But actually I got a book, a little paperback book called the "Jesse Stewart Reader."

Jesse Stewart was a writer from Eastern Kentucky.

And he, that language was certainly there.

And I loved that book.

I just, I still have it.

It's just, pages are falling out.

But he was writing about Appalachia.

And the kind of world that I was very familiar with, the world of my grandparents who were farmers up there.

But as I got older, I really became under the spell of Faulkner.

And I think I continue to be there.

I'm actually going to speak at the Faulkner conference next month.

I'm more nervous about that than anything.

[chuckling] And years, because I revere him so much.

But, as I got into my 20s, I read Lee Smith.

I think the first book that I read that really did what you're talking about, was oral history.

Lee Smith is one of our great writers in North Carolina.

She was actually born in Grundy, Virginia.

- Yeah, Grundy, Virginia.

- Long-time North Carolinian.

And she was writing about Southern Appalachia.

And then I read Robert Morgan.

And I think Robert Morgan, personally, I think he's our greatest American poet right now.

If you have not read his poetry, I don't know of anyone who has his range.

He can write poems about physics, about history, about growing up in rural Green River, North Carolina.

And another great writer, Fred Chappell, who just recently died, fairly recently, great writer.

So yeah, each time, and I think that's kind of interesting.

Because we read those writers as young writers.

And we think, "Well, wow, there's nothing left for me."

But there is.

And I think what they do is, there's this sense of this kind of ongoing tradition.

And I think there's been a real momentum, particularly in North Carolina.

Maybe in some ways it started with Wolfe.

I think Wolfe had a real possibility for me, once again, growing up 50 miles from Asheville.

But yeah, and I think there's a certain energy.

And I think as a young writer, you and some of your contemporaries, I think felt that this seems to be something that we do pretty well down here.

- Yeah.

- And I tell people, whatever our sins, at least in North Carolina, we know how to cook, and play music, and write.

You know, we can do those things.

[all chuckling] - You know, and you mentioned Faulkner.

And we talked about Ernest Gaines a little bit ago.

Ernest Gaines kept a picture of Faulkner above his desk.

He referred to Faulkner as "My old man."

And he could draw lines of descent from what he had written from things that Faulkner had written, and traced those influences.

And I can do that with Ernest Gaines, and how I write dialogue, or how I set a scene.

And I can do that with you, as well.

I've robbed you blind many times, Ron.

I apologize in front of this audience.

But were you aware there in the late 90s, I'm thinking about Lee Smith becoming a national name.

I'm thinking about Bob Morgan's "Got Creek," when Oprah took it as the book club.

Thinking about "Cold Mountain."

I'm thinking about your novels coming out in the early 2000s.

Were you aware of something happening in the region, especially in Western North Carolina, that there were suddenly people interested in what was going on here beyond the region?

That New York was interested?

That the West Coast and Hollywood was interested?

Were you aware of that at the time?

- I was becoming aware of it.

And I think what happened in Western North Carolina, and I would really start with Lee, and Lee Smith, and Morgan, and Charles' book hit big, too.

You know, not long after that.

Or, right in that period.

That it was kind of like what happened in the Harlem renaissance.

Something, kind of what happened in the deeper south with Welte, and Faulkner, and Tennessee Williams, was happening here.

And I mean it was just, there really was an energy.

And I felt it, and I found it inspiring.

I felt like we kind of moved, at least to a degree, a center of most important places where literature's happening in the country.

And I think people were noticing that.

And, yeah.

- And of course in 2008, you published "Serena."

Which was for many readers, certainly not the readers in this room, but readers nationally, got a lot of attention from readers nationally.

So what did it feel like?

You published "Serena" in 2008, you published 10 books before that.

What did it feel like to become an overnight success after 25 years?

[all laughing] 25 years of being in the salt mines doing it?

- Well, I don't...I thought it was interesting.

I think sometimes, and there's some cautionary tales with people such as Truman Capote.

I think it was good, if I did get some attention, it would come later.

Yeah, it was just nice.

I mean, when I started out, I thought, well you know, if I could publish a few poems in a magazine, maybe get a book out.

And it was a good feeling.

But I think in most ways, it just didn't change anything.

The next book was just as hard.

I didn't let it distract me.

And just kind of kept on.

And I think so much of that's luck, and timing.

And I was very lucky at that period.

But, it was also a time, I think were "Cold Mountain" had gotten a lot of attention, as you say, "Gap Creek."

So, I think it helped make it possible that it would get more attention, maybe.

- And, "Serena" was such a different book than any you had written before.

It had that epic feel to it that just felt really timely.

When it came out, there was an audience waiting for it.

- Yeah, think so, hope so.

- So what was life like?

I joked about you being an overnight sensation.

But I know there were decades there of slogging away at the the Tritech Community College.

And grading mountains of papers.

And having two little kids underfoot, they were close in age.

And, your wife was teaching school, as well.

What was that time like?

How were you finding time to write, and what was that like to climb that hill?

- Well, I think we share similar experience, we both have children.

And I think what I did, one year I pretended like Daylight Savings Time hadn't change.

So, I actually would get an hour.

[audience laughing] I would, my wife is a teacher, and so I would pick up the kids after school, and we'd go to the park, if they wanted me to play with them.

But I always had a pencil and paper.

I taught night classes, so I could free up a little bit of time in the morning to write.

I mean, you find ways.

I mean, I think the easiest thing to do is to find an excuse not to write.

And I'm very Protestant, so I just pretty much... And I think I was very lucky, I was an athlete in high school and in college.

And so I kind of learned that kind of discipline, that day in and day out.

And different writers do it different ways.

Some writers don't write for weeks.

But for me, I just kind of needed to be there.

But I just think it was important enough.

And early on, I wasn't writing well.

I knew that, threw away two novels.

I burned them.

They were an assault upon art.

[audience laughing] But I was learning.

But you know, I think it came down to two things.

One, was that, just the difficult pleasure of being a writer.

I mean, when it's working- - There's nothing better.

- There's nothing better.

You're just in that zone.

But the other thing was, even though I wasn't getting published, I felt like, do I wanna live my life possibly failing at this?

'Cause I committed to it long term.

I mean, I knew I was gonna keep trying until the day I died.

And fail, or would I rather not know?

And I would rather fail at than not know.

And that, after that it kind of became easy.

I'm gonna do the best I can.

Either it'll be good enough or not.

But, I'll give it my best effort, and we'll see what happens.

- So you mentioned it a few minutes ago, and I've heard you speak before.

Especially with the breakout of "Serena."

That little tag, the adjective that proceeds writer, very often, Appalachian writer, Southern writer.

And I think I've heard you say, that tag can feel like a but.

- Yeah.

- But, he's a writer, too.

Or, he's also a writer, but this is the identity, this is where he's coming from.

But you know, no one is ever called a New York City writer.

You know, no one is called a Los Angeles writer.

But we are often called Appalachian writers, or Southern writers.

What do you think about that?

And is there a benefit to that, is there a handicap to that?

Is there marginalization in that?

Is there fetishizing of the national subconscious, and calling the South, tagging it as such?

Southern music, Southern rock and roll, Southern food?

- Yeah, I have an ambivalence about it.

I mean, I do see a kind of lineage with Ernest Gaines, Faulkner, Lee Smith.

And so certainly, I know that my work does come out of this region.

But, I tend to be leery of any term, even Appalachian.

And, I'm very proud to be from this region.

Or Southern...

I guess it always depends on how it's being said.

I mean sometimes it does have that sense of almost, just.

- Yeah, 'just' is the word I was looking for.

- And I think that's where I have a problem with it.

Because, I think to me a writer I actually love, Richard Price, New York City writer, is incredibly regional.

I mean, you know every street and every block in New York City, and to me, that's his great strength.

I think that specificity, that ability to find a universal in a particular.

And one way of looking at it, it's been helpful for me, is I would actually make a distinction between regional and local color.

And this is where I would use regional in the sense I would use it about James Joyce.

Regional writer ultimately is immersing themselves in a particular place.

But it's by going into that particular place, the writer is ultimately going into the universal.

You're finding the universal within a particular place.

The local color writer is more interested, or almost sometimes totally interested in just describing the place.

- Yeah, yeah.

- And to me, that's kind of a helpful distinction.

Because I think that, in a way, kind of reclaims regional in a more positive sense.

- Yeah, and I always think of local color as contrasting insider, or outsider.

Local color tales are almost always reliant on an outsider coming to the inside trying to take something.

And the only time that I, in my mind, you've ever written local color, is the hilarious story that ends up being a terrifying story of the ballad collector that goes up to Silva.

- Yeah.

[chuckling] - Can you talk about that story?

- Yeah, that was a fun one.

I've actually been in Scotland a couple of years before that at a book festival.

And it just kind of reminded, so I had an Englishman come up into Western North Carolina in the 1800s, and he's come to collect old mountain ballads.

And he doesn't realize that a lot of these ballads came from Scotland, not England.

And he manages to insult this old Scotswoman.

You know, she speaks that old Gaelic language.

And they end up scalding his tongue with a poker iron.

[group gasping] - So it's just as funny- - Real funny.

- Funny story.

[audience laughing] - But yeah, that one's kind of...

So yeah, that's a good example of local color.

- And the minute he comes into town, he's like, "Look at these houses."

"How austere and earthy."

And, he's writing notes down.

And he thinks everybody is an idiot.

And they think he is.

- Yeah.

- They think he's an alien.

They're like, "Who is this guy?"

- And he's interested in, he's confessed that essentially England in the medieval times has actually been transported.

And the guy drives around, he fakes his name.

The guy's name, the local guys, Yago Beraf.

And so, how look, they brought Shakespeare over, and they kept that name alive.

But actually a guy saying, "I go by Rafe."

[audience laughing] - So speaking of language, I'm wondering if you would read your poem, "Black-eyed Susans" for us?

- Sure.

- And just so we can here some of the language.

And if folks are only familiar with your novels, or your short stories, you're in for a treat.

- Yeah, and actually, if I...

The farm where my grandparents lived, we still own the land up there, actually.

There's a cemetery right above it.

And when I was a child, sometimes there was only a barbed-wire fence, so flowers or a wreath would be blown over onto the pasture, the pasture land.

And as a child, I'd be sent back to put it over.

Y'all wouldn't know which particular grave.

But, I was taught to do this very reverently.

And I mean, even as a kid, a little bit, just a sense of kind of going, sending a, going from that living to the dead.

And that actually comes back in my new novel.

I actually set the novel there.

But you know, one day just this image of this farmer finding some, a bouquet on his farmland.

And realizing that it had come over.

But, also recognizing that the flowers were from his wife's flower garden.

And that her first husband was buried up there, in that graveyard.

This is called "Black-eyed Susans."

"The hay was belt-buckle high when rain let up, "three days baked-stalks dry.

"By midday all but the far pasture mowed, "raked into wind rows.

"Above, June skies still blue as I drove my tractor "up on the ridge, "to far pasture were strands of sagging barbed wire "marked where my land stopped, church land began.

"Knowing I'd find some great gift.

"Flowers, flag, styrofoam cross "blown on my land.

"And so, first walked the boundary.

"Made sure what belonged to the other side got returned.

"Soon enough saw black-eyed susans.

"the same kind growing in my yard, "tied to the bow, a tight-folded note.

"'Always,' was all that it said.

"Which said enough for I knew what grave "that note belonged to.

"I knew as well who wrote it.

"She and him married three months when he died.

"Now, always young.

"Always their love and first bloom.

"Too new to life to know life was no honeymoon.

"Instead, she'd learn that lesson "with me over three decades.

"What fires our flesh set early on, cooled by time, "just surviving.

"I learned why old folks called it getting hitched.

"Because like mules, so much of life "was one long road you never saw the end of.

"And always, he was close by.

"Under a stone, you could see from the porch.

"Wedding pictures she kept hide in her drawer.

"His black and white flashbulb grin.

"Grinning at me.

"Like he knew he made me more of a ghost to her "than I'd ever be.

"There that moment, that word in my hand.

"His grave so close, "If I had a shovel near, "I'd dug him up right then.

"Hung his bones up on the fence.

"Made her see what the real was.

"For memories are always the easiest thing to love.

"Keep alive in the heart.

"After awhile I laid the note "and bouquet where they belonged.

"Never spoke a word about it to her, then or ever.

"Even when she was dying calling his name "was her last words.

"Sometimes on a Sunday afternoon, "I'll cross the pasture.

"Make sure her stone is not starting to lean.

"If it's early summer, "bring black-eyed susans for her grave.

"Leave a few on his, as well.

"For soon enough, we'll all be sleeping together, "beyond all things that ever mattered."

[audience applauding] - Some... And every married person in here is thinking, "Who does she still love?"

[all chuckling] Or, who is he thinking about?

Right?

So, you've written a lot about cemeteries.

You mentioned "The Caretaker."

And later this afternoon, we're gonna talk about the poem, "Under Joe Cassey."

About the flooded valley there, where cemetery still remains, and the community was buried.

What is it about cemeteries that draws you back?

And also, you mentioned image.

And you had an image.

And I've heard you speak many times, and I've talked to you about this.

That a lot of times your work begins with an image that won't turn you lose.

And sometimes you return back to it.

What have cemeteries meant to you and your writing?

- Well, I think I never found them frightening places.

I think that was the first part.

I think, 'cause one thing, some beautiful rituals in Appalachia that I've witnessed.

Decoration Day, where families go and clean the family graveyards.

My father died young.

And one of the most beautiful rituals was my relatives dug his grave.

This was long ago.

But, the people in the community.

And I think that kind of, that it wasn't so abstract.

And as a kid, the cemetery was up there, I had several relatives buried up there.

And it never was a place that, I mean I found it just a place that was interesting.

But, important just in the sense that, and I continue to feel this, a sense of connection to these people.

There's a cemetery about 10 miles from here where my grandparents are buried.

And Rash is not that common of a name, even in Appalachia.

But there's this long row, Rash, Rash, Rash.

And just that sense of connectedness to that.

So yeah, I think those places have never been places I wanted to stay away from.

- And hearing you read that poem, one thing that I love about your poetry, many of your poems, a lot of them are image-driven.

But a lot of them are narrative-driven.

And that one certainly is.

We're essentially listening to a short story written in poetic form, with line breaks.

And often times, if I teach your work on "First Blush," my students, their response is, "Well, this is just a short story divided by commas."

[Ron laughing] - And I'll say, "Okay, well let's count the meter.

And then we'll go back and see the controlled meter.

And so, if I'm not mistaken, "Black-eyed Susans" is on the Iambic pentameter, right?

- It's central, and it's syllabic, and it's a seven-syllable line.

- Seven syllable line.

So each of those lines has seven syllables in it, written in I ams, which is unstressed stress.

So, there's a controlled number of stress syllables for every line.

And when we think about someone like Shakespeare, Shakespeare wrote in what's known as blank verse.

It's five lines of un-rhymed on the pentameter.

And then you have a poet in Appalachia in 2000, when was this probably written, early 2000s?

Writing it in much the same way.

And it's that attention to syllable and to meter, and to count, is that something that you decide before you begin the poem?

Or, do you work your way through it?

And then, does writing within the confinement of a structure free you in a way?

- Well yeah, I think the first danger as primarily a narrative poet, is it is chopped up prose.

I mean, that's always a danger.

So, you're trying to find some kind of a tension, and something to do with the sound.

And so usually the rhythm will announce itself.

Though, when I'm really working, I work to, I aim to triadic a line a lot in "Eureka Mill," because I wanted the line to mimic the sense of the sound of the machinery.

So, strict [indistinct].

In some of these poems, I was working a syllabic line.

But I was kind of going back to something the Welsh did about 1500 years ago.

If you've read Hopkins, Dylan Thomas.

What I love about Welsh poetry, is it's very sound intense.

You know, Hopkins...I call it this morning morning's minion, kingdom of daylight's darling.

That really, that kind of crush of sound.

So yeah, it's a way of intensifying the line.

It's a way of establishing rhythm and sound, and just the pure pleasure.

I mean, I love reading Frost, because he's so good at disguising what he's doing as far as craft.

But you're hearing it.

Whether you realize it, or not.

And I've tried to do it in my fiction, as well.

I'm incredibly focused on sound to an unhealthy degree.

- Well, I can tell you, Ron, I don't wanna embarrass you.

But I think of you as our contemporary Robert Frost.

I think of you as presenting many of the ethical, the personal ethical quandaries that Frost was writing about, through presenting the natural world.

In humans, and in confrontation with themselves, in the natural world the way that Robert Frost did.

So, I'm glad you brought his name up.

So now, we're going to move in to the close of our time together.

It's a North Carolina lightening round.

Designed to make at least half the audience mad at Ron.

- Oh gosh.

[audience laughing] - If they're from North Carolina.

[audience laughing] So, I'm gonna ask you a couple of questions, and we'll close out, and then we'll have some time for questions, if y'all have questions for Ron about his books, or about the writing life, or about anything...teaching, anything like that.

So here's the first question of the lightening round, Ron.

And I imagine this will be an easy one to answer.

Best hush puppies in North Carolina?

- Bridges Barbecue, Shelby, North Carolina.

[all laughing] Next?

[audience laughing] - Oh, I gotta tell this story, though.

About 10 years ago, there's a restaurant, Bridge's Barbecue in Shelby, you've been there.

- [Wiley] Oh sure, yeah.

- And that's kind of where I went.

And actually, one of my friends married into the dynasty, the barbecue dynasty.

So, they knew me there.

And, I've been on NPR, some shown on NPR.

And they asked me that question, and I said, "Bridges Barbecue, Shelby."

The next time I was in Bridges Barbecue, the guy that ran the counter said, "Hey now, we had somebody come in here and said "they heard about us on Bridges Barbecue.

"And he said, 'I didn't know, or think anybody "'that listened to NPR came in here.'"

[all laughing] - Next question is... Who is the most often overlooked, or underappreciated North Carolinian writer?

- Well, I'm gonna stay with the dead on this one, speaking of cemeteries, because yeah, there are a number that I can say, contemporary, too.

But, I think in a way, he's almost starting to get forgotten.

I've got to bring up Fred Chappell.

I mean his genius.

I don't know if you've read, if you have not read Fred Chappell, you should read, "I Am One of You Forever."

It's just one of the most beautiful books.

It's a book that every time I read the ending of it, I break down.

It has the most beautiful ending of any, gosh, about any book.

And he has been well-known, but I don't.

I've noticed actually, I was at Appalachian Writer's Conference, or Appalachian Studies Conference, and nobody mentioned his passing.

And I thought, we gotta remember this guy.

And yeah, I would think of him.

Some other writers, I'll just say Wilma Dykeman, I think she's starting to come back, too.

But I think Chappell, and Chappell, he was one of those who kind of showed me the possibilities of being not just, say a novelist or short story writer, but also a poet.

And Morgan did that, too.

- Yeah, and Fred Chappell is one of those guys.

I mean, he came up in the 1960s, studied under, or studied with Ronald Price, right?

- Ann Tyler.

- Yeah.

And ended up at UNC Greensburg, kind of spearheaded their MFA.

And made it a really phenomenal, phenomenal program.

But he was our North Carolina Borges or Calvino.

Who could spin these tales of metaphysics in Canton.

And question the reality and the truth of storytelling, and how it can absorb lives and do these very interesting experimental things.

- Yeah and he actually, most of his primary influences were European.

I mean, he was very, very well-versed in Latin, Latin writer, you know, French.

And he kind of opened that up, too, to me, too.

- And very esteemed in Europe, as well.

And so, my last question.

Considering how much you write about rural life in the region, where is your favorite place to take an aimless hike, or an aimless drive in North Carolina?

- Oh, wow.

When I was younger, the Shining Rock Wilderness.

You know, up to Graveyard Fields, if you know where that area is.

A beautiful area, I love that area.

I loved growing up, I actually lived, my grandparent's farm, and that land still borders Blue Ridge Parkway.

And that was when I was a kid, I would just walk down the parkway, and then you could go off into, there was place called Goshen Creek.

And you could go out there and wander.

So yeah, I think those are places.

And I think there was a trout stream that I fished, gosh, this is from age four on.

And it was, it went about two miles.

And sometimes when I can't go asleep, I'll imagine that stream, and I'll go pool by pool.

So that's kind of a place, too.

That's near, between Boiling Rock and Boon.

So, I think those places.

- Oh, that's beautiful and interesting.

So, we've got some time for questions, if folks have any questions for Ron about anything he's written, or but, otherwise y'all been a very attentive audience.

You laughed at all the stuff I found funny, as well.

[all laughing] And you've seen just as impressed by Ron as I am.

But if you have questions, that's the best part.

I would always joke with the audiences whenever I do an event, or I'm with a writer.

I say our work does not change.

We're done with it, and it stays in a book.

The only thing that changes are the questions.

And so, that's the only thing that tends to still feel fresh after- - Yeah, it's a little bit like- - After we do something.

- Blank stairway to heaven, again.

- Yeah, exactly.

[all laughing] - Yeah, go ahead.

- I was just wondering between poetry, short stories, and novels, do they come to you at different times?

How do you decide which one you're gonna be working on?

Or, is it more structured?

- Yeah, that's actually a good question.

Because I usually don't know.

It's interesting.

I've had several, with "One Foot in Eden," and "Saints at the River."

Both, I've started with a poem, and the image for "One Foot in Eden," was a farmer standing in a field, that's all I had.

I knew his crops were dying around him.

I knew that something else was kind of, TSL, you would call it the objective correlative, that something else was going on emotionally.

And that was all I had.

So, I wrote a 12-line poem.

And this was after throwing away two novels, or not throwing them away, burning them.

[all chuckling] - You just don't want us to look for them.

- I did burn them, I really did do that.

I was afraid that somebody would find them.

[all laughing] So I started writing "One Foot in Eden," and I got about 25 pages.

And I had this sickening feeling, 'cause I thought it was gonna be a short story.

Oh, no.

[all laughing] And, not again, you know?

And I just kind of, it just became a novel.

So, but because whether it's poem, short story or novel, it's always an image that gets me going.

And because of that, a lot of times I don't know.

And actually this began, in a way I could of seen how this could of gone further.

But it just didn't seem to wanna go there.

What about you?

I've never... Do you start with a line?

- I start mostly with financial desperation.

- Okay, yeah.

[audience laughing] - And that's what really gets one word to follow the next.

But I think what I start with is I'm trying to puzzle through something that's nagging me.

It's not necessarily image-driven.

But I start with, like for my first novel, that Kirk was so nice to mention.

You know, growing up in an Evangelical family in the mid-1980s, as an adult I would look back and I would ask myself, "Why didn't my parent, why did my grandparents "give money to Jim and Tammy Faye Baker?"

Why did we believe in Jerry Falwell, or Jimmy Swaggart?

What was it about the era in which I was raised that was causing good, hard-working blue collar people to give money to these millionaires who were taking advantage of them by falsely living the Word?

That just troubled me.

And every book I feel like I have like a murky problem that I'm trying to come to terms with.

That I hope that maybe somebody else will be interested in.

- Yeah, yeah.

- In puzzling through.

Yeah?

- I'd be curious to hear from both of you, when do you know that a student has real writing talent?

When you get excited about a student?

- That's a good question.

When do you know?

- Well, I would actually say, sometimes I see it quick.

But there are other times when I am actually, several writers that have done well.

They didn't stand out at first.

And I think that's where talent's one thing.

But you have to have a kind of mule-like, if you're gonna write fiction, willingness to trudge and write, and write a certain amount.

But I would say first off for me, and I tend to go with language so much.

If I see something interesting happening with the language, that really, I find that encouraging.

And the other thing I look for is the ability to understand, that, I'm gonna say this wrong, but their lives are not endlessly fascinating.

But I would say that about a number of contemporary writers right now, so.

But yeah, that they're interested in imaging lives other than their own.

- That's a good one.

And language is the same for me.

I'm thinking of a student that I had this past semester in my fiction writing class here at UNC Asheville.

The first story she turned in, had some great stuff going on in character development.

But she tried to make it very plaudy.

'Cause I think that's what she thought would interest the class.

If there's a big reveal at the end, or if there's a big, you've been tricked kind of thing.

And so we met, we talked about it.

And I encouraged her just to go in on the character.

Just drill down on characters.

That's what your writing wants you to do.

Don't overlay the structures of plot dynamics on these characters who are trying to breathe and find their way on the page.

And the next piece she turned in, is probably the best thing I've seen from a student here.

The language was so alive.

And the characters were so rich on the page.

And the more the characters live, the more interesting complicated things they'll do, then you've got your plot.

Then you got your narrative, then you got your story.

And so, to your point, Ron, I think it's language, it's just an awareness of how language can be used.

And you might agree, I cannot teach that.

I cannot teach somebody to use language.

I can teach them how to write dialogue, I can teach them how to set a scene.

I can teach them what narrative summary is.

I cannot teach them how to use language, or where that the touch of that language, where it comes from.

- And you know, one final thing that I recognize, that I tell my students, because I had to learn this myself.

I actually wrote an essay one time.

As a writer the worse thing you can have is an idea.

- Yeah, yeah.

[audience laughing] Oh, yeah.

- Yeah because just you know, you immediately, it's almost like you put all the possibilities on a rail.

And I did that, when I was writing when I was early on, "Oh, I got a great idea for a story."

And it would just be wooden and mechanical.

And finally just when I, as you said earlier, you find that character, you find that voice, you do something with the language.

- Yeah, when people come to me and say, "I got a great idea for a novel.

"A guy gets on an airplane, and lands, "and the world is completely empty."

[audience laughing] And I'll say, "Okay well, you've created an orphan."

[audience laughing] So, there's going to be no conflict, unless he finds that another plane landed at the same time.

And maybe they'll get into a fight.

[audience laughing] But also, ideas.

Ideas get you about 20 to 30 double-spaced pages.

I found that to be consistent.

And I can't tell you the number of people who have come to me and said, "I only got about 20 pages out of that idea."

I was like, yeah.

Because nobody was there when he landed, right?

There was nothing going on.

[audience laughing] Not a lot to fight with.

- And that doesn't mean the ideas don't come out eventually.

- [Wiley] Sure.

- But, it's more organic.

You'll find the ideas, you gotta get the characters- - Yeah, when you write through an idea, what do you got, what do you have left?

Yes?

- So when it comes to actually writing a novel, how do you make it so that instead of just reading words on a page, it actually pulls the reader in, and it gets them to picture the imagery in the novel, and it gets them to feel as if they were almost there watching the sequence unfold?

- That's one for you.

[all laughing] His mom is a librarian.

- Okay, well- [audience laughing] - And an alumnus of this fine university.

- Well, well.

Well, I think that's what we struggle with everyday as writers.

I mean, it's that question.

What I do, I do more drafts than most writers.

And I mean to me it's, those questions tend, each draft I think I'm, once I get fit, pretty much get the plot done, that's when those questions of structure, what do I need, do I need something that's gonna introduce, I need this to start the book.

You know, it's kind of like putting together a huge puzzle.

But I mean, you got so many challenges.

I mean, I think that's why they're really difficult.

I mean every time I write one, I just feel completely drained.

I think you do, too.

But I would say this, I think this is why it's so important to read.

If you've read hundreds of novels, you're not even conscious of this after awhile.

I mean it's just, it's intuitive.

I mean you've learned this from maybe reading [indistinct].

You've read this from maybe reading [indistinct].

And these things, it's not even like, a lot of times you have to think about them.

They just kind of emerge.

Faulkner had a great line.

He said, "Read, read, read, "and then forget what you've read."

And he just meant to kind of open it up for you.

- And you just kind of internalize how the novel works.

And then you would kind of intuit your way, your way through it.

Yeah, Matt?

- I've heard Wiley speak on this subject in the past, but I was curious about your approach to research when you're working on a story or a novel, and how you, I guess what your process is for going about that?

- Oh, I love research.

I mean, I love doing, I love finding out things that I don't know.

And so I, I do it different ways.

I like to talk to somebody who has actually done it.

When I was writing "Serena "I had an idea, an idea, oh gosh.

[audience laughing] I had an image of a... [audience laughing] I wondered if I could have this central character, she could actually hunt rattlesnakes with an eagle.

I didn't know if that would be believable.

And I finally found a guy in Wyoming who hunted with an eagle, a golden eagle.

And I won't go into how difficult that is to get all the...

But what I found when you deal with these people, is they're incredibly condescending.

[all laughing] I mean you know, I remember I did with "Serena," I also had to call a guy, the museum, you know, a train museum.

I mean, the disdain I can even think I was going to come close to understanding this.

But the good thing is that, they're insane.

[audience laughing] Once you get them talking, they can't stop themselves.

But yeah, I love that.

A little trick I do, if I'm writing about a particular year, I will buy a Sears Roebuck catalog of that year, and that is so helpful.

Because what kind of shoe would this woman wear?

I mean, you know, you're not talking about, what kind of candies, those kind of things.

That's been helpful.

But you do all that research, and somebody's gonna find that you did something wrong.

You got something wrong, and they're gonna let you know it.

[audience laughing] I never answer them.

But I had a guy call me after my third novel, "The World Made Straight," which takes place pretty close to here.

It was about a massacre of union sympathizers during the Civil War in Madison County, Shelton Laurel Massacre.

And I've gone up to the grave site where these, including a 12-year-old boy had been killed.

It's a very tragic event.

And I've read the "New York Times" 1863 newspaper article it.

I've read a book, there's a book called "Victims."

- [Wiley] Oh, Phillip Shaw Paludan.

- Yeah, University of Tennessee Press.

So, I got a call from this guy and he said, "Well, Mr.

Rash, "I want you to know that you got that detail wrong.

"The 12-year-old child was not the last one that died "at the Shelton Laurel Massacre.

"It was one of the grandfathers."

And I said, "Well, that's kind of interesting."

I said, "Well, "New York Times," I said my sources.

I wasn't defensive about it, 'cause it doesn't do any good.

But I just finally said, "Well, that's interesting."

I said, "Well, what are your sources?"

And he said, "I and my team of paranormal investigators..." [all laughing] "We're up in Shelton Laurel."

I don't know if I ever told you this story.

[all laughing] I just said, "Okay."

You know, okay.

- You say, well call- - The ghosts, they're not gonna give us a cure for COVID, or anything, no.

They're gonna tell, well Ron Rash got this thing.

The ghosts are going to be concerned about this.

- You say, "Well, here's my number for my editor."

- Yeah, yeah, you need to talk to Wiley Cash.

- [Wiley] He handles these.

- He's got a woman who allegedly died in a cotton field in one of his novels.

[all chuckling] - Yes, sir?

- We think of you two as great writers, but in a more fun, middle-of-the-century great storytellers.

I'm just curious with such a rich tradition of verbal storytelling in this region, is there a crosswalk between the communities?

Do you two use a different way to tell stories?

Do you guys talk to each other, or run across each other?

- Oh sure, yeah, yeah, yeah.

- I think we got, one thing that I find wonderful, is that the writers, Chappell, Morgan, Lee Smith, were very good to me.

They didn't have to be.

[chuckling] And I think they set a kind of a bar for the generations.

And I think Wiley's generation, there are a lot of good writers, Nathan Clapsaddle, David Joy, Mark Pal, we've got some really good younger writers.

Really good poet named Maria Zaccola, man, she's writing some good.

But just that sense of yeah, we know each other.

But I think a lot of times, it's interesting, I think sometimes, one of the best things is we talk about writers we're excited about.

So I learned about writers, and not necessarily contemporary writers.

I might go back and read a writer.

But yeah, we know each other.

And I think in a way because we're kind of, you know, it's not like being in New York City.

We just kind of know each other.

And kind of older generation has taught us how to be gracious.

About you, I mean?

- Sure absolutely, we were talking about Clyde Edgerton on the way over here this morning.

And he's a writer who's been way nicer to me than he should have.

And has Lee, and Joe McCorkle, and Jackie Shelton Greene, the poet laud of North Carolina, is going to be with us this evening for tonight's event.

So there is a real kindness.

And I'm a little bit older than David Joy, a little bit older than actually Bryant Phillips from the eastern part of the state, and they're kind of coming up behind me.

And I see them quite a bit.

And so, there's a real collegiality in the state.

We're really fortunate to be here, and to be part of this.

Yes, sir?

- I just wanna say thank you first for being here, and being a part of this.

And as a mountains of North Carolina native, I thought I would share one of my favoritisms, which is if you see someone doing something in kind of a stupid way, that boy is trying to pull a wagon with square wheels, which I always thought was a funny one.

- That's good.

- A lot of your writing talks about, it talks about the mountain culture, and talks about kind of rural culture, and North Carolina is rapidly kind of changing some of that.

And I'm just kind of curious your thoughts about some of the loss that might be happening in some of that kind of culture that you write so much about.

- Well yeah I mean, change is just part of life.

I think somewhat part of the impulse of what I wanna do, and I mean, I think a number of writers is you perhaps want to serve, try to not let things be erased that you value.

Language, culture.

But at the same time, you don't wanna to sentimentalize.

I mean, if all I'm doing is kind of sentimentalizing this kind of lost world, that's as bad as demonizing it.

What you're trying to do is to be, to write about what does it mean to be a human being?

And I don't think that changes.

But I do write contemporary stories, as well.

But I think, it's all about, gosh, Faulkner again.

You're trying to get it, what does it mean for the heart, and the heart in conflict with itself?

And that will never change.

I mean, but the culture, yeah, I wanna kind of hold onto some of that, too.

Not let it be forgotten.

[upbeat music] - We hope you enjoyed this program.

I'm Kirk Swenson, thank you for joining us for this year's Asheville Ideas Fest.

[gentle music]