“New York Times” best-selling author, Sharyn McCrumb, will be speaker at the High Country Writers meeting at the Watauga County Public Library, 10 a.m., Thursday, August 8. HCW meetings are co-sponsored by the library and are open to the public.
Sharyn McCrumb is best known for her Appalachian “Ballad” novels, including the “New York Times” best sellers “The Ballad of Tom Dooley,” “The Ballad of Frankie Silver,” and “Ghost Riders,” which won the Wilma Dykeman Award for Literature from the East Tennessee Historical Society and the national Audie Award for Best Recorded Book. Her most recent “NY published” novels are “Prayers the Devil Answers,” the story of the last public hanging ever carried out in the United States, and “The Unquiet Grave,” the story of West Virginia’s Greenbrier Ghost.
Her current project started out as a way to keep isolated people entertained during the pandemic, but it became– by popular demand– a book of the collected adventures of Marvin and his raccoon family. Volume III: “The Life and Times of Feral Sam,” recounts the escapades of Marvin’s mischievous nephew. Like the first two volumes, “The Marvin Chronicles” and “The Marvin Chronicles II: The Glorrifats – Adventures and Legends,” the stories are attributed to John of Gaunt. Author Sharyn McCrumb branches out to an exploration of what the raccoons believed and felt. In the history and folklore of the tribe, she records their attempts to make sense of the natural world, and to honor the memory of those who came before them.
Sharyn McCrumb is a regular contributor to the High Country Writers meetings, and visitors are always welcome. For more about HCW, visit the website at highcountrywriters.org.