Host Robin Young speaks with North Carolina author Ron Rash about “The Caretaker,” his first book in a decade. The novel centers around a young man serving as the caretaker for both the local cemetery ...

Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. Ryan Tasker as Jacob in Word for Word's "Hard Times: Appalachian Stories by Ron Rash." (Robbie Sweeny/Word for Word) Sometimes, in ...

North Carolina writer Ron Rash's latest novel, "The Caretaker," is set mostly in 1951 and mostly in and around Blowing Rock. But it reads like a mountain ballad, centuries old, passed down from the ...

THE CARETAKER: A Novel. By Ron Rash. Doubleday. 272 pages. $28. To the late Pat Conroy, multitalented writer Ron Rash was always “Mr. Big,” a term of jocular endearment equally evocative of Conroy’s ...

Something Rich and Strange (Ecco), by Ron Rash For those unfamiliar with the beautiful and searing short stories of Ron Rash, Something Rich and Strange is a generous, well-timed introduction. Rash s ...

Ron Rash has made the fog-shrouded ridges of Appalachia his fictional home in novels and short stories over a highly acclaimed career dating back decades. With “The Caretaker,” his first novel in ...

Award-winning Appalachian author Ron Rash is the newest inductee into the North Carolina Literary Hall of Fame, joining some of his mentors. He says writing wasn’t always a life goal. “When I was in ...