What will Kentucky Book Festival visitors find on your table?
“Haint Country: Dark Folktales from the Hills and Hollers” is a collection of contemporary southeasternKentucky folktales evocatively illustrated by Olivia Sizemore. The stories are informative, fun, eerie,strange, perplexing, and a few quite scary—blurring the line between fact and fancy, legend and history, realand surreal. It’s a locally narrated travel guide deep into the wild wealds of Kentucky that many fear toventure out upon!
Whom do you invite to stop by? Who will benefit from reading your book?
I like to describe this book as “Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark for Adults,” or seasoned younger readers,depending on one’s tolerance for certain levels of folk horror-esque motifs and imagery. I think if you enjoythat sort of intimate, place-based, animated vibe of storytelling, you will really enjoy this work. Likewise,students of history, folklore and Appalachian culture will welcome this collection of some lesser-knowntraditions (Painthers and Sasquatch-like beasts), as well as some entirely new material. We’ve included acompendium as a reference for readers seeking to deepen their connection to these tales as well, so there is agreat potential for repeated reads and further study! In the broadest sense, Haint Country is a contemporaryvisual and narrative presentation of Appalachia’s living folkloric traditions, so if you are looking tounderstand better our culture and history, have the itch for folk-horror, are looking for some comfortablespookiness (and humor!), this book is for you.
Could you please tell us something curious about you and/or your book?
Interesting Things About Me:
I am trilingual. I once appeared on a gameshow (Who Wants to Be A Millionaire?), I have lived a goodportion of my adult life in the Middle East (survived the first months of a war there as well). Olivia and Iwent to high school together. I used to play the piano really well and would love to start again. I currentlyplay the Karakeb (Moroccan percussion instrument). I am a wildly passionate landscaper and gardener. I liketo bake bread.
Interesting Things About the Book:
Many of the stories for this book were collected during grassroots relief work I was involved in during theflood of ’22. Most of the stories in fact, were collected from the area that Olivia and I grew up (LeslieCounty). Some I even heard as a child! A creepy realization I had while doing the research for this book,admittedly at a late stage, is when I realized that some of the stories I would’ve liked to have written off astall tales in fact have more than a bit of truth to them; a fact that is equally enchanting and disturbing.
Is this your first time participating in Kentucky Book Festival? If yes – what are you looking forward to themost? If you’ve participated before – what was your favorite experience at the Festival?
This is my first time ever participating in the Kentucky Book Festival as an author or even attending thefestival as a literature enthusiast! I am looking most forward to meeting everyone of course, book people aremy people!
