"Masters of Fiction"
Daniel Woodrell is the author of eight novels, five of which were selected as New York Times Notable books of the year, many of which are set in the Missouri Ozarks, where his family has lived since before the Civil War. With a tempo and style that is completely his own, Woodrell is often compared to William Faulkner and Cormac McCarthy. His new novel, The Maid’s Version, tells the story of a 1929 dance hall explosion that killed 42 people in West Table, Missouri. His 2006 novel, Winter’s Bone, was made into an Academy Award–winning film. He is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop.
Poet, short story writer, and novelist Ron Rash and his family have called the Appalachian Mountains home since the mid-1700s. His short story collection Burning Bright won the Frank O’Conner International Short Story Award. Rash will share his much anticipated collection, Nothing Gold Can Stay, comprising 14 linked stories that invoke the haunting evanescence in Robert Frost’s poem of the same name. Critics have praised it as “striking . . . mesmerizing . . . masterfully crafted.” Rash’s raw and real yet lyrical prose chronicles the hard times and hard fall of his characters. His 2008 novel, Serena, is being made into a film starring Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper.