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Literary
Trails of the
North Carolina Mountains
From the Preface to
Literary Trails of the North Carolina Mountains
by Georgann Eubanks, photos by Donna Campbell,
published by UNC Press with support from the North Carolina Arts Council
Every book is a journey, carrying us into worlds unknown and familiar. Through them we learn about ourselves and others--the culture of whole communities, the poetry of place, and the daily chores, observances, and surprises of life among characters imagined and real.
Now suppose you combined the journey of a book--many books even--with an actual trip, say, a statewide tour of the places, people, and events described by those curious creators of books: in this case North Carolina's poets, playwrights, novelists, biographers, and essayists. Throughout history, our state's native and visiting writers have been a talented lot. Connecting their work and lives to actual places in North Carolina worth visiting is the idea behind this series....
This Literary Guidebook (and its two companion volumes about the Piedmont and Coastal Plain) are finally books about books, a way to read your way across North Carolina . Each half- or whole-day tour will steer you to the spots that inspired our state's writers and the literary visitors who also found their Muse here.
As such, this narrative goes beyond the literature itself. It requires a deeper imagining--to see what these authors have seen, to breathe the air in the places where they have lived and worked and written, to consider their aspirations, fears, and struggles.
Read photographer Donna Campbell's note in the book
440 pp., 83 color and 20 black and white illustrations,
22 maps, and index. Visit the Literary Trails
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from the author!
CLICK HERE
"Georgann
Eubanks proves to be the perfect tour guide--knowledgeable, companionable,
insightful, and often surprising. Who knew about Anne Tyler's very
interesting connection to Celo, for instance? A perfect book for
the armchair traveler as well as the actual tourist."
--Lee
Smith, author of
On Agate Hill
"Georgann Eubanks has not written a guidebook;
she has furnished a cheerful and personable and wonderfully informed
companion to take us along the literary leafy tracks and briary bypaths
of the North Carolina mountains. Welcome one and all, reader and traveler,
to blue-green vistas of pleasure!"
--Fred Chappell,
NC Poet
Laureate Emeritus