Community Ink: Jolene Mcilwain

Join us to hear more about local author Jolene Mcilwain's Sidle Creek. Set in the bruised, mined, and timbered hills of Appalachia in Western Pennsylvania, this tender exploration of a small town and the people who live there wrestles the myths and stereotypes of the mining, mill, and farming towns where Mcilwain herself grew up. With stories that take place in diners and dive bars, town halls and bait shops, McIlwain’s writing explores themes of class, work, health, and trauma, and the unexpected human connections of small, close-knit communities. All the while, the wild beauty of the natural world weaves its way in, a source of the town’s livelihood – and vulnerable to natural resource exploitation.

With an alchemic blend of taut prose, gorgeous imagery, and deep sensitivity for all of the living beings within its pages, Sidle Creek will sit snugly on bookshelves between Annie Proulx, Joy Williams, and Louise Erdrich.

Jolene McIlwain is a writer of fiction, flash memoir, and personal essays. Her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, Best Small Fictions, and Best American Short Stories and appears in numerous literary journals.