“A brilliant portrait of a community and a way of life long gone, a lost America.”–Charles FrazierAgainst the breathtaking backdrop of Appalachia comes a rich, multilayered post—Civil War saga of three generations of families–their dreams, their downfalls, and their faith. Cataloochee is a slice of southern Americana told in the classic tradition of Flannery O’Connor and William Faulkner.Nestled in the mountains of North Carolina sits Cataloochee. In a time ...

Woodsmoke is a poetry collection that renders the experience of living out life in a single, exquisite place—“in the shadow of the mountain my father said was mother to us all”—Mount Pisgah in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. Wayne Caldwell, author of the novel Cataloochee, brings us the waning days of Posey Green, who cuts his own firewood, looks after himself, and tends to the land where his wife Birdie and her people are buried. Posey’s coll...

River Road is a collection of narrative poems in the voice of Susan McFalls, writing from her new home in North Carolina’s Blue Ridge Mountains.Wayne Caldwell, author of Cataloochee, returns to North Carolina’s Blue Ridge Mountains to continue the story of Susan McFalls, who is left on Mount Pisgah after the death of her dear friend and neighbor Posey Green. These poems follow Susan as she moves to and renovates an old house on River Road, vividly...

Climate change and an evolving non-renewable energy sector threaten the future viability and sustainability of communities across the country. While rural communities have a special place in the national fabric, they often lack the resources to tackle these important and evolving threats.Planning for Rural Resilience: Coping with Climate Change and Energy Futures makes clear that communities and municipalities have opportunities to make informed and constructive decisions ...

This book presents perspectives on the past and present state of the understanding of snake origins. It reviews and critiques data and ideas from paleontology and neontology (herpetology), as well as ideas from morphological and molecular phylogenetics. The author reviews the anatomy and morphology of extant snakes. Methods are also critiqued, including those empirical and theoretical methods employed to hypothesize ancestral ecologies for snakes. The modern debate on squamate phylogeny an...

As land is lost to urban sprawl and other non-farm activity, our ability to produce food is diminished and options for future food production are limited. Farmland preservation speaks to the need to preserve the agricultural land base for future generations. The need for protection is driven by uncertainty caused by climate change, population growth, food security, energy availability, and other local and global factors. This uncertainty means that there is an ever-growing responsibility t...