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Kentucky author Garry Barker releases new book
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Award-winning Kentucky author Garry Barker’s newest book is Head of the Holler: Volume I, released Sept. 15 by Wind Publications of Nicholasville.
The new 160-page paperback is a collection of Barker’s “Head of the Holler” newspaper columns that have run in regional papers since 1988, a
mostly humorous look at rural and Appalachian life from a native of Elliott and Fleming counties who worked 40 years as an arts administrator before retiring from Morehead State University and becoming publisher of the Flemingsburg Gazette.
Barker’s last book, Kentucky Waltz won the 2008 Kentucky Literary Award for Fiction from the Southern Kentucky Book Fest and Western Kentucky University, and his previous books of fiction, history, essay, and poetry have received much regional and national acclaim. He has also won writing honors from the Catholic Press Association, Kentucky Arts Council, Appalachian Heritage magazine, and other publications and agencies.
Encouraged by Louisville Courier-Journal columnist Byron Crawford to write a rural humor column, Barker did the first “Head of the Holler”
for the Salt River Arcadian in 1988, and other newspapers soon asked to use the column including the Richmond Register, where Barker has been a
fixture for almost 20 years. Of the new book, Crawford wrote ""Only writers who truly know and love Appalachia from the ground up can authentically celebrate its colorful language and folkways. Jesse Stuart was a master of the craft, and so is Garry Barker."
The columns in the new book are from the early years, when Barker lived and worked in Berea. In 1996 he moved to Morehead, close to home, then
relocated to Bald Hill in Fleming County two years later. Barker now lives a quarter mile from where he spent most his childhood and early
adult years, and two years ago purchased the Flemingsburg Gazette with his wife, Danetta, editor of the weekly paper established in 1880. The
Gazette is now home to “Head of the Holler,” though other papers continue to publish the popular column.
Barker’s previous books of fiction are Fire on the Mountain, 1983; Copperhead Summer, 1985; Mountain Passage, 1986, reprinted by the Jesse
Stuart Foundation in 2003; and All Night Dog, 1988. He wrote The Handcraft Revival in Southern Appalachia, 1930-1990 for the University
of Tennessee Press, followed in 1996 by Notes From a Native Son. Barker wrote the text for the successful coffee table book, Mitchell
Tolle: American Artist, plus Berea Hospital: The First Century, and a poetry chapbook Bitter Creek Breakdown.
He has published hundreds of short stories, essays, opinion pieces, and news articles over the decades, does commentary for Morehead State
Public Radio, and maintains the Web site “Garry Barker’s Head of the Holler” at www.angelfire.com/ky/barker.
Head of the Holler: Volume I is available at bookstores or on-line through Amazon.com or other large booksellers and can be ordered
directly from Wind Publications at http://windpub.com/books/HeadOfTheHoller.htm. The cost is $15 plus tax and shipping.
Barker will return to the Kentucky Book Fair Nov. 15 in Frankfort with both Head of the Holler and Kentucky Waltz, and will attend the
Maysville Festival of Books Dec. 13. |
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Reader Comments
Comments are limited to 200 words or less.
Tom Watson wrote on Oct 22, 2008 9:57 AM: " It was truly exciting to have Garry
Barker in our "Funnies and Folklore"
section of the Salt River Arcadian. My
wife, Susan, and I knew immediately that
Garry was an extremely talented writer
who needed a venue to get started.
Thomas Shelby Watson
Reporter
The Associated Press "
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