James Still

Ted Olson (East Tennessee State University)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.2.4: American (US) Writing and Culture: Postwar and Contemporary, 1945-present.
Vol. editors: Sofia Ahlberg (Uppsala University), Patrick Chura (University of Akron), Emory Elliott (University of California, Riverside), Dale Enggass (University of Utah), Christopher Hugh Gair (University of Glasgow), Matthew Hofer (University of New Mexico), Stephen E. Meats (Pittsburg State University), Kerry Myler (Birmingham Newman University), Justin Parks (UiT - The Arctic University of Norway), Nick Selby (University of East Anglia)

Dates

Born 16 Jul 1906
Died 28 Apr 2001
Activity 1937-2001

Places

Born in United States
Active in United States

Activities

Primary

Essayist
Novelist
Poet

Other

Autobiographer
Children's/Young Adult writer
Letter-writer/ Diarist
Teacher/ Professor
Travel writer

Resources

Still's Works

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Despite having been born and raised in Chambers County, Alabama, in the southernmost foothills of Appalachia, James Still is generally considered one of the finest writers to have lived and worked in Kentucky. Most of Still's writings – including his acclaimed novel

River of Earth

(1940), award-winning short stories, poetry, children's literature, and folklore collections – are set in the eastern Kentucky hills, where he lived from 1931 to his death on April 28, 2001.

Both sides of Still's family could trace their ancestry to Appalachian Virginia. His father J. Alex Still, a self-educated farmer and horse trader, married James's mother Lonie Lindsey in 1893; the union produced ten children. The sixth child overall and the first of five boys, James Still grew up in and near the town of

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1024 words

Citation: Olson, Ted. "James Still". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 21 March 2002 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=4949, accessed 21 November 2024.]