The University Press of Kentucky

Celebrated as the “Dean of Appalachian Literature,” James Still has won the appreciation of audiences in Appalachia and beyond for more than seventy years.

James Still remains one of the most beloved and important writers in Appalachian literature.

Still's delightful Appalachian retelling of ""ack and the Beanstalk," with illustrations by Margot Tomes, was the New York Times Book Review Judges' Choice for Best Illustrated Children's Book when it first appeared in 1977.

Who hasn't heard of Jack Sprat, Little Boy Blue, and Peter the pumpkin eater?

In language both spare and colorful, sure in its command of Appalachian dialect and poetic in its evocation of mountain settings, James Still’s stories reveal the lives of his people—lives of privation and struggle, lived with honesty as well as humor.

First published in 1940, James Still’s masterful novel has become a classic.

With illustrations by Paul Brett Johnson Sporty Creek is a series of short stories set in the Kentucky hills.

James Still first achieved national recognition in the 1930s as a poet.

After keeping school for six years at the forks of Troublesome Creek in the Kentucky hills, James Still moved to a century-old log house between the waters of Wolfpen Creek and Dead Mare Branch, on Little Carr Creek, and became “the man in the bushes” to his curious neighbors.

The people of the Kentucky mountains and the southern Appalachians preserved a language alive with colorful turns of phrase and whimsical wit and for their amusement they created a rich vein of oral lore—songs, tales, and games.