This talented panel of authors will read from their recent works -- 5 authors, 5 minute readings each -- followed by an evening of conversation to celebrate the recent publication of McIlwain's debut short story collection, Sidle Creek. 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 writing appears widely in literary journals and the Best Small Fictions anthology. Her writing has been nominated for several Pushcarts and she was named finalist for Best of the Net, Glimmer Train’s New Writer’s Award, and Arts & Letters Unclassifiables contest. Jolene was also a semifinalist in Nimrod’s Katherine Anne Porter Prize and both American Short Fiction’s Short and Short(er) Fiction contests. Her debut short story collection, SIDLE CREEK, was published this spring by Melville House. It has received a starred review from Publisher’s Weekly and reviews from The Associated Press and NPR. Jolene McIlwain was born, raised, and currently lives in western PA. April Bradley is a Durham, North Carolina-based writer and editor. Her writing appears in Blink Ink, Cheap Pop, CRAFT, Gone Lawn, Heavy Feather Review, jmww, Journal of Compressed Creative Arts, Narratively, and SmokeLong Quarterly, among others. […]