NEW SOUTHERN OHIO BOOK BY DANNY FULKS

For more than thirty years, through a wide variety of publications and more than seven hundred public presentations and lectures, I have argued that Appalachia is culturally united but arbitrarily disunited by state lines.

To use the tri-state area as an example, Eastern Kentucky is more like West Virginia and Southern Ohio than Lexington and Louisville, and Southern Ohio is more like Eastern Kentucky and West Virginia than Columbus and Cleveland.

That's why Jesse Stuart's stories of Eastern Kentucky hill life and Billy C. Clark's stories of local river life have been so popular. They're not just about Eastern Kentucky. They're representative of a large Appalachian area that covers parts of thirteen states, and the people they describe are like millions of Appalachian people.

The same can be said of Danny Fulks' stories about Southern Ohio. Fulks, a Lawrence County, Ohio native and popular, now retired, Marshall University Professor, has published two books about Southern Ohio life. Both books have local settings and have enjoyed strong local sales, but they have sold well outside the tri-state area, too.

The Jesse Stuart Foundation published Fulks' "Tragedy on Greasy Ridge" three years ago and it is in its second printing. This book focuses on Lawrence County, Ohio and includes stories about Bevo Francis and the Waterloo Wonders, among eighteen non-fiction articles and essays.

The success of Fulks' first book prompted him to author a new one, published in 2006. "Tick Ridge Faces the South" is an excellent collection of true stories, memories, and photographs from Appalachia and the South.

This collection includes fiction and also three excellent non-fiction stories including one on West Virginia musician John Douglas and another on Floyd Collins whose death in a Kentucky cave in 1925 attracted national attention. Collins was trapped for two weeks. When rescuers finally reached him by a tunneling project, he was dead. Doctors believed that he had died of hunger and exposure only twenty-four hours before help arrived.

Collins' tragic death prompted much periodical literature and two 1950s television movies. Robert Penn Warren's novel, The Cave, was inspired by the Floyd Collins story and so was "Ace In The Hole," a 1950 movie starring Kirk Douglas.

Fulks' many excellent photographs contain informative cut-lines that further define our culture. Included are several photos of the author and his vehicles at various stages of his life, so it as an "auto-biography" as well as a fine collection of stories and essays.

Danny Fulks' books, along with thousands more on the Appalachian experience, are available in the Jesse Stuart Foundation Bookstore at 1645 Winchester Avenue in downtown Ashland. For more information, call (606) 326-1667 or visit our website: jsfbooks.com.