Stories of the Mountain State

Sara Pearce of the Greenville Journal speaks with Furman English professor Laura Leigh Morris, who has published a collection of short stories about life in West Virginia, Jaws of Life: Stories. A self-described “dark writer,” Morris said, “One thing that I think the stories do is to blow the lid off the stereotypes of the area, and they explore the realities of living in a place where resource extraction is everything. Coal mining, fracking, gas wells, and always stripping the resources from the land, and what happens when an entire populous relies on this ripping the land apart to live … It’s heartbreaking for the area, and for my home.”

A book launch party will be held at Greenville’s Fiction Addiction 6-8 p.m., Thursday, March 1.