27 Views of Asheville: A Mountain Town in Prose & Poetry

Asheville is a town with a strong sense of place--architecture, mountain views, a creative locus. a history as complicated as any Southern town. Now twenty-seven (and then some) of the legions of writers who call Asheville home create a literary landscape of this fabled Southern mountain town. 27 Views of Asheville casts a wide net, capturing its ethos in prose and poetry. The essays, short stories, poetry, and book excerpts create a chorus of voices that reflect the social, historic, and creative fabric of Asheville.

Writers include Charles Frazier, Michael McFee, Gail Godwin, Heather Newton, Robert Morgan, Ron Rash, Pam Duncan, Sharyn McCrumb, and many others.

The collection addresses everything from Thomas Wolfe’s powerful legacy to the town’s celebrated Art Deco architecture, from struggles with development to the stark realities of Asheville’s Jim Crow past, from personal histories to its reputation as a nexus of the arts and all things cutting-edge.

This is the third book in Eno Publishers’s 27 Views series that features the literary communities of contemporary Southern towns. The series’s initial book was the award-winning 27 Views of Hillsborough, with an introduction by novelist Michael Malone, followed by 27 Views of Chapel Hill, published in 2011 with an introduction by Daniel Wallace.

Introduction by Rob Neufeld:
“A full view of Asheville involves, finally, the recognition that writers are writing about it, and are part of the evolution. There’s a danger of Asheville becoming a reality show; but there are also good indications that the thrust is to bring people together for healthy understanding.”