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The Northern Appalachian Reading Series presents Angel Rosen and Jolene McIlwain!
April 11 @ 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm
The Northern Appalachian Reading Series is proud to conclude its third year by hosting poet Angel Rosen and fiction writer Jolene McIlwain, reading from her best-selling collection “Sidle Creek”, from 6-8 pm on April 11, 2024 at Butler County Community College’s Heaton Family Learning Commons.
“Sidle Creek” was named a NPR Book of the Year, a Library Journal Best Books of 2023, and a Library Journal 2023 Best Book Covers of the Year
Set in the bruised, mined, and timbered hills of Appalachia in western Pennsylvania, “Sidle Creek” is a tender, truthful exploration of a small town and the people who live there, told by a brilliant new voice in fiction.
In “Sidle Creek”, McIlwain skillfully interrogates the myths and stereotypes of the mining, mill, and farming towns where she grew up. With stories that take place in diners and dive bars, town halls and bait shops, McIlwain’s writing explores themes of class, work, health, and trauma, and the unexpected human connections of small, close-knit communities. All the while, the wild beauty of the natural world weaves its way in, a source of the town’s livelihood – and vulnerable to natural resource exploitation.
Jolene McIlwain’s work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and appears in numerous online and print literary journals including West Branch, Florida Review, Cincinnati Review, and more. Her work was included in 2019’s Best Small Fictions Anthology and named finalist for 2018’s Best of the Net, Glimmer Train’s and River Styx’s contests. She’s received a Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council grant, the Georgia Court Chautauqua faculty scholarship, and Tinker Mountain’s merit scholarship. She’s taught literary theory/analysis at Duquesne and Chatham Universities, and she worked as a radiologic technologist before attending college. She was born, raised, and currently lives in a small town in the Appalachian plateau of Western Pennsylvania.
Angel Rosen is a poet living in Armstrong County. Her writing explores themes of otherness, friendship, attachment, obsession, lesbianism, and grief. Her work has been published by Olney Magazine, HAD, Talon Review, Rogue Agent, and many others. Read more of her work at angelrosen.com.
An open mic featuring BC3 students and members of the community precedes Rosen and McIlwain. A Q&A session will follow the authors’ readings. Both authors will have books available for purchase (cash only) and signing. Light refreshments served. Free and open to the public.
