five more voices
generations of West Virginia creative writing
~ five writers, each issue ~
A sister site to Voices of West Virginia : Issue # 3
free of
charge!
You're invited
to feel proud!
For an
intro,
click the About
tab
Five WV writers in this issue
Scroll down for writers from past issues
legendary, beloved songwriter
Hazel Dickens
as you've never known him
Homer Hickam
young and
multi-talented
Hazel Iafrate
Natalie Sypolt
fiery, celebrated
short stories
Julia Keller
mystery novels set in rural West Virginia
Click on the writer's picture to go to that writer's page.
West Virginia is packed with wonderful storytellers and poets. It's part of who we are.
This site makes it easy for you to connect with West Virginians
(of all ages) who turn out high quality creative writing of all kinds, who are at various points in
their love affair with writing.
Some writers you know, some you don't. Each issue spotlights 5 writers.
If you want this to continue, get on our email list and tell your friends!
We're looking for talented young West Virginia writers
-
under 20 years old
-
passionate about writing
-
consistently produces
-
high-quality work
Want to nominate a young
writer? Let us know! voicesofwestvirginia@gmail.com
Describe the student's work and give us the name and contact info of the student's teacher, if possible.
Here are three WV students we recently spotlighted. Click on the picture to read the profile.
_JPG.jpg)
If several thousand West Virginians join our mailing list, we have a good chance of getting sponsors, so we can keep spotlighting WV writers for free!
So pile on!
And pass it on!
For now, five More Writers will be published every six months. Inbetween, we will send out Substack posts. Send us your email address, and you won't miss anything.
We'll let you know when a new issue
is available.
It's free! No spam, no obligation!
A thumbnail glimpse
Homer Hickam: much more than a rocket boy
Most West Virginians know about Homer Hickam's Rocket Boys. But who knew he has published 18 other books? Homer resisted pressure to keep writing the same thing. Instead, he wrote three novels about colonizing the moon ("Coalwood on the moon"). He wrote a highly-praised historical book about German submarines attacking the U.S. coast in World War II. And a mystery about dinosaur bone hunters. Etc. “I see myself as a writer, as an author,” he said. “That's what I love to do." Writer Douglas John Imbrogno spins it all into an entertaining tale.
Each issue of Five More Voices features a young WV writer. This time, it's
Hazel Iafrate : 17 years old, multi-talented and down to earth
When she was seven, Morgantown High School student Hazel Iafrate won the First Grade Future Author Award. Named for Hazel Dickens, she hasn't stopped since. At age 17, she performs her original songs in public, is writing a novel and turns out remarkable poetry. "It took me awhile to get to the point where I could confidently call myself a writer," she said recently. "During the past couple of years, I’ve had more confidence in that title, writer ... It wasn’t that, one day, I was suddenly a writer. It was just that I saw that I had always had been one.”
Hazel Dickens : From rural poverty to international fame
Hazel Dickens grew up in a Mercer County family with 11 kids. When she was inducted into the West Virginia Music Hall of Fame, she said, “Poverty could not diminish what I was so richly blessed with, the soul-stirring sounds of mountain music. They became the fabric of my long, musical life."
Hazel sang her poetry, and it went around the world. Read about her childhood and listen to the songs that earned her such honors as Heritage Fellow of the National Endowment of the Arts.
Natalie Sypolt : "Unflinchingly honest and deeply human" stories
Raised in rural Preston County, Natalie Sypolt absorbed stories about rural people, their failings, their tragedies and redemptions. Her grandparents told her vivid stories as they rode around the back roads. She soaked it up.
She was a voracious reader. "I would have loved it when I was young, if somebody had handed me a book about people I could recognize from my own life, a book that says, 'These lives are important enough and worthy enough to be written about.'” Now she's writing those books, in riveting, insightful prose that is likely to bring her considerable national recognition.
Julia Keller
After winning a Pulitzer Prize for her newspaper writing, Cabell County native Julia Keller quit The Chicago Tribune and started writing her nationally-praised detective novels based in West Virginia. Her motivation: help people care about West Virginia's opioid epidemic.
“I had begun to ask myself with increasing urgency: Does writing about something ever make a difference?" She thought about Uncle Tom’s Cabin, The Grapes of Wrath and other novels that helped readers see a widespread problem through the story of a few people and decided to try.
If you enjoy this site, check out our sister website, Voices of West Virginia .
It spotlights FOURTEEN of West Virginia's
most celebrated WV writers.
Five More voices is a spinoff, created because people loved those writers and asked for stories about more!
At voicesofwv.org, enjoy hour-long audio visits with each of 14 celebrated West Virginia writers!
