Modern Homestead Hosts Author Jonathan Corcoran This April

Modern Homestead Hosts West Virginia Native Author for Special Book Reading and Signing in Reedsville

Collection of short stories written by Jonathan Corcoran published by the West Virginia University Press explores the experiences of LGBTQ people in rural Appalachia

West Virginia University Press has published The Rope Swing, a collection of short stories by Jonathan Corcoran. This is Cocoran’s debut story collection, The Rope Swing (released this April). His work has been named a finalist for the Flannery O’Connor Award in Short Fiction and a semi-finalist for the St. Lawrence Book Award. He received a BA in Literary Arts from Brown University and an MFA in Fiction Writing from Rutgers University-Newark. He was born and raised in a small town in West Virginia and currently resides in Brooklyn, NY.

These are the stories of outsiders—the down and out. What happens to the young boy whose burgeoning sexuality pushes him to the edge of the forest to explore what might be love with another boy? What happens when one lost soul finally makes it to New York City, yet the reminders of his past life are omnipresent? What happens when an old woman struggles to find a purpose and reinvent herself after decades of living in the shadow of her platonic life partner? What happens to those who dare to live their lives outside of the strict confines of the town’s traditional and regimented ways?

The characters in The Rope Swing—gay and straight alike—yearn for that which seems so close but impossibly far, the world over the jagged peaks of the mountains. 

Modern Homestead (Tathams) will host Corcoran for a book reading and discussion, Sunday, April 17, 2016 from 12pm-3pm located at 41 South Robert Stone Way, Reedsville. Books will be available for purchase.