Ron Rash’s family has deep roots in the Southern Appalachian Mountains, and most of his writing reflects his connection to the region. Rash grew up in Boiling Springs, North Carolina, home to Gardner-Webb University, and earned his undergraduate and graduate degrees from Gardner-Webb and Clemson universities, respectively.
Rash is the author of five books of poetry: Eureka Mill (1998), Among the Believers (2000), Raising the Dead (2002), Waking (2011) and Poems: New and Selected (2016); six books of short stories: The Night the New Jesus Fell to Earth (1994), Casualties (2000), Chemistry (2007), Burning Bright (2010), Nothing Gold Can Stay (2013), Something Rich and Strange (2014), and In the Valley (2020); and seven novels: One Foot in Eden (2002), Saints at the River (2004), The World Made Straight (2006), Serena (2008), The Cove (2012), Above the Waterfall (2015), and The Risen (2016). Upon the publication of Serena, Pat Conroy said, “Serena catapults [Rash] to the front ranks of the best American novelists.”
Rash’s poetry and fiction have appeared in dozens of journals, magazines, and anthologies, including The Longman Anthology of Southern Literature, Sewanee Review, Georgia Review, Kenyon Review, Southern Review, Shenandoah, and Poetry. He has been honored with many awards, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, an NEA Poetry Fellowship, the Sherwood Anderson Prize, an O. Henry Award, and the James Still Award by the Fellowship of Southern Writers.
Rash currently holds the John Parris Chair in Appalachian Studies at Western Carolina University.
Ron Rash photo © Ashley Jones, Clemson World Magazine