DEEP & WILD Author Interview in The Story Is the Thing

Five questions: Going deep and writing wild in West Virginia

WESTVIRGINIAVILLE: Aside from ‘yourself’ and maybe the Nobel Prize for Literature folks, who is your ideal audience in your head for ‘DEEP & WILD’? Say that you could design your perfect audience, who — among many audiences, perhaps — did you have in mind while writing and compiling the pieces for the book?

LAURA JACKSON: I wrote it for people who aren’t from West Virginia, those who wonder or don’t know what it’s like to live here, to be of this place, and for those who may be convinced that we both fit the hillbilly stereotype and live in misery. I wrote it for people who don’t know the wild beauty of this place, the intense connection with nature and the mountains, and the way West Virginia gets into your bones.And, of course, while I was writing for everyone else, I knew without a shadow of a doubt that most of the readers would be West Virginians, because we love to feel that connection, to the land and to each other. We love sharing the secrets of this place, simultaneously guarding them and wishing everyone else knew and understood.

Read more at https://www.thestoryisthething.com/archives/17188.