Emory & Henry: Learn

Programs of Study
Art

Athletic Training

Biology

Business Administration

Chemistry

Economics

Education

English

Geography

History

Languages

Mass Communications

Mathematics & Computer Science

Music

Philosophy

Physical Education

Physics

Political Science

Psychology

Religion

Sociology and Anthropology

Theatre

Special and Interdisciplinary Programs
Environmental Studies

International Studies

Pre-Engineering

Pre-Law

Pre-Medical Program

Public Policy and Community Service

The Iron Mountain Review

First published in 1983, The Iron Mountain Review was originally intended to be "a literary and cultural magazine for Southern Appalachia." It began as the joint creation of professors John Coward and Robert Denham, who were associated, respectively, with the Mass Communications program and the English Department here at Emory & Henry. Their intent was announced on "The Editor's Page" of the inaugural issue, an issue devoted to Sherwood Anderson, who spent the final twelve years of his life in Smyth County, Virginia, about twenty miles from the college. According to these editors, "The Iron Mountain Review is primarily interested in the achievements of this region, the literary, artistic, and cultural accomplishments which deserve to be seen and read and reviewed. The Iron Mountain Review hopes to celebrate the talents of the region's creators--its writers, thinkers, artists, and photographers." Initially, two issues per year were planned. Both the ambitious scope of coverage envisioned for the review and the twice-yearly publication schedule proved more than circumstances permitted, especially after John Coward left Emory & Henry to pursue his doctorate. Although an issue on the Holston River, guest edited by Jeff Daniel Marion, appeared in the winter of 1984, in all but one year since then the review has been published only annually.

The content of each issue has arisen from the proceedings of the college's annual literary festival, which celebrates a creative writer with strong ties to southern Appalachia. Following the Anderson festival, the English Department decided that the featured author should be a living writer who would be brought to campus over a two-day period to give a reading, to participate in a public interview, and to hear two or three papers about his/her work. Each issue of the review has subsequently printed those papers, together with some writing by the featured author and a transcript of the interview. On October 23-24, 2003, Emory & Henry sponsored its 22nd such festival, in this case honoring poet and fiction writer Ron Rash. Over the past two decades the writers featured at these events have been among the best known in the entire region, including James Still, Fred Chappell, Lee Smith, John Ehle, Jim Wayne Miller, Wilma Dykeman, Robert Morgan, Mary Lee Settle, Charles Wright, Jeff Daniel Marion, Gurney Norman, and Denise Giardina. And these writers have published in a wide array of genres: fiction and poetry, of course, but also plays, children's books, histories and biographies, memoirs, and literary criticism.

Copies of The Iron Mountain Review, which have often contained extensive bibliographies on these authors, have themselves become valuable critical resources for the study of Appalachian literature. A forthcoming volume of essays entitled Appalachian Literary Criticism (Ohio University Press), for instance, draws heavily from the pages of the review, as does a forthcoming collection of the interviews originally published in IMR, which will appear under the title Writing Appalachia (University of Tennessee Press). Through these annual literary festivals and the publication of their proceedings in IMR, Emory & Henry has made a substantial contribution to the ever-increasing appreciation for the literary arts in southern Appalachia, a literary renascence that shows no signs of abating.

Back

Emory & Henry College
P.O. Box 947
Emory, Virginia
24327-0947
276.944.4121