Ron Rash

Ron Rash (born 1953) is an American poet, short story writer, novelist, and academic.

Life
Rash was born in Chester, South Carolina, in 1953 and grew up in Boiling Springs, North Carolina. He is a graduate of Gardner-Webb University and Clemson University. He is the Parris Distinguished Professor in Appalachian Cultural Studies at Western Carolina University.

In 1994 he published his first book, a collection of short stories titled The Night the New Jesus Fell to Earth. Since then, Rash has published three collections of poetry, three short story collections, and four novels, all to wide critical acclaim and several awards and honors.

Rash's poems and stories have appeared in more than 100 magazines and journals over the years. With each new book, Rash has confirmed his position as a central and significant Appalachian writer alongside well-established names like Fred Chappell, Lee Smith, and Robert Morgan. Serena has received favorable reviews nationwide and was a 2009 PEN/Faulkner Award Finalist.

Recognition

 * 1987: General Electric Younger Writers Award.
 * 1996: The Sherwood Anderson Prize.
 * 2002: Novello Literary Award for One Foot in Eden.
 * 2002: ForeWord Magazine’s Gold Medal in Literary Fiction for One Foot in Eden.
 * 2002: Appalachian Book of the Year for One Foot in Eden.
 * 2004: Saints at the River is awarded Fiction Book of the Year by the Southern Book Critics Circle.
 * 2004: Saints at the River is awarded Fiction Book of the Year by the Southeastern Booksellers Association.
 * 2004: Saints at the River is given the Weatherford Award for Best Novel of 2004.
 * 2005: Rash is given the James Still Award by the Fellowship of Southern Writers.
 * Short Story "Speckled Trout" included in 2005 O. Henry Prize Stories. This story formed the basis for the first chapter of The World Made Straight.
 * In 2006, participants in Western North Carolina read Saints at the River as part of the region's program, "Together We Read."
 * 2008: Chemistry and Other Stories a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction.
 * 2009: Serena a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction.
 * 2010: Awarded Heasley Prize at Lyon College.
 * 2010: Burning Bright winner of Frank O'Connor Award
 * 2010: Rash is inducted into the South Carolina Academy of Authors.

Poetry

 * Eureka Mill (1998)
 * interweaves his family's personal migration from Buncombe County, NC farms with the broader portrait of mill life outside Chester, South Carolina
 * Among the Believers (2000)
 * Raising the Dead (2002)
 * Deals with loss and displacement as a result of the flooding of Jocassee Valley, S.C.
 * Waking (2011)

Short story collections

 * The Night The New Jesus Fell to Earth and Other Stories from Cliffside, North Carolina (1994)
 * Casualties (2000)
 * Chemistry and Other Stories (2007)
 * Thirteen short stories, eight of which were previously published in Casualties ("Chemistry," "Last Rite," "Not Waving But Drowning," "Overtime," "Cold Harbor", "Honesty", "Dangerous Love," "The Projectionist's Wife,"). Also includes the O. Henry Prize Winner "Speckled Trout" as well as "Pemberton's Bride," a story that gives a taste of Rash's forthcoming novel.
 * Burning Bright (2010)
 * Nothing Gold Can Stay (2013)

Novels

 * One Foot in Eden (2002)
 * Fleshes out the characters and themes of Raising the Dead. It tells the story of a community displaced disguised as a murder mystery and imbued with Rash’s poetic language.
 * Saints at the River (2004)
 * About a South Carolina community torn over the issue of environmentalism.
 * The World Made Straight (2006)
 * Both a coming-of-age story set in the 1970s Appalachia and a meditation on the role of the past in the present, in this case a Civil War massacre that has divided Madison County, N.C. ever since.
 * Serena (2008)
 * The ambitious wife of a North Carolina timber baron, Serena brings the spirit of Lady MacBeth to depression-era North Carolina.


 * The Cove (2012)
 * A family is afflicted with a series of grave misfortunes. Their lives, particularly Laurel’s, are interrupted at the arrival of a mute stranger who has been found after suffering a deadly number of wasp stings.

Children's book

 * The Shark’s Tooth (2001)

Magazine Publications

 * The Woman at the Pond (The Southern Review, Vol. 46.4, 2010)