An Author Event featuring Jeff Mann in conversation with Julia Watts

Name: An Author Event featuring Jeff Mann in conversation with Julia Watts
Start: 2024-06-09T15:00:00-04:00
Location: 517 Union Ave, Knoxville, TN, United States, Tennessee 37902

Schedule

Sun Jun 09 2024 at 03:00 pm

UTC-04:00

Location

517 Union Ave, Knoxville, TN, United States, Tennessee 37902 | Knoxville, TN

Union Ave Books is excited to present Appalachian author Jeff Mann. Jeff will be in conversation with Julia Watts about his newest book Loving Mountains, Loving Men: Memoirs of a Gay Appalachian. This event will take place on Sunday, June 9th at 3pm at our bookstore. This is a free event. Please RSVP via the ticket link.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jeff Mann has published six books of poetry, Bones Washed with Wine, On the Tongue, Ash, A Romantic Mann, Rebels, and Redneck Bouquet; three collections of essays, Edge, Binding the God, and Endangered Species; a book of poetry and memoir, Loving Mountains, Loving Men; six novels, Fog, Purgatory, Cub, Salvation, Country, and Insatiable; and four volumes of short fiction, A History of Barbed Wire, Desire and Devour, Consent, and The Sagas of Mann. With Julia Watts, he co-edited LGBTQ Fiction and Poetry from Appalachia. The winner of two Lambda Literary Awards and four National Leather Association-International literary awards, he teaches creative writing at Virginia Tech.
ABOUT THE BOOK
A Gay man chronicles his relationship to his native Appalachian culture and society.
Appalachians are known for their love of place, yet many LGBTQ+ people from the mountains flee to urban areas in search of community and broader acceptance. Jeff Mann tells his story as one who left and then returned, who insists on claiming and celebrating both regional and sexual identities.
In memoir and poetry, Mann describes his life as an openly gay man who has remained true to his mountain roots. Mann recounts his upbringing in Hinton, a small town in southern West Virginia, as well as his realization of his homosexuality, his early encounters with homophobia, his coterie of supportive lesbian friends, and his initial attempts to escape his native region in hopes of finding a freer life in urban gay communities. Mann depicts his difficult search for a romantic relationship, the family members who have given him the strength to defy convention, his anger against religious intolerance and the violence of homophobia, and his love for the rich folk culture of the Highland South.
His character and values shaped by the mountains, Mann has reconciled his sexuality with both traditional definitions of Appalachian manhood and his own attachment to home and kin. Loving Mountains, Loving Men is a compelling, universal story of making peace with oneself and the wider world.