Timothy Silver is professor of history at Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina. His previous publications include A New Face on the Countryside: Indians, Colonists, and Slaves in South Atlantic Forests, 1500-1800.

The book impressed the selection committee, not only with its captivating story line, but also because Rash's voice lends such authenticity to the story's characters and setting.

......of Chapel Hill and taught creative writing in public schools, community women's centers, and hospices. From 1999 to 2001, she was the writer in residence at Duke University Medical Center, where her work with long-term patients was featured in the national media. She lives in Durham, North Carolina, with her

Born in Houston, Texas, Gwendoline Y. Fortune grew up hearing stories of her "mixed blood" heritage: a free-born black great-grandfather, Native Americans, Scot-Irishmen, a cowboy grandfather, a Confederate great-grandfather and relatives who were missionaries in pre-World War II China. She went to college at the age of fifteen and has been writing ever since. Selections from Growing Up Nigger RicH

Among Reynolds Price's thirty-five volumes of fiction, poetry, plays, essays and translations are many works of religious inquiry that explore topics at the forefront of theological debate. In his latest book, A Serious Way of Wondering, the self-described outlaw Christian interweaves imagined encounters with Jesus and lively analysis of Jesus' ethics.

Haven Kimmel's irresistibly smart and generous first novel is at once a romance and a haunting meditation on grief and faith. This Durham native with the "Zippy" Nickname joins D.G. Martin to discuss her joyous new story about finding one's better self through accepting the shortcomings of others.