This is as closely-knit an anthology as you are ever likely to see. It is as though a large, extended family were drawing on the same store of family stories, jokes, symbols, landscapes, animals, trees, language, and vernacular. But it is not merely local references that unites these writers. There is a larger vision that ties these works together.

This collection of contemporary short stories, essays, and poems addresses the powerful effect the Mountain State has had on its native sons and daughters. With contributions by such noted West Virginia writers as Jayne Anne Phillips, Maggie Anderson, Mary Lee Settle, Davis Grubb, Henry Louis Gates Jr., Louise McNeill, Richard Currey, and Irene McKinney (West Virginia's Poet Laureate, who also edited this anthology), the selections in Backcountry paint a picture of the Mountain State that is at once haunting, hilarious, and magical.