Wood County, Adult Fiction, translated into a dozen languages. In his compelling, deep voice, this Pulitzer Prize nominee gives us absorbing, sometimes stunning glimpses of the Vietnam ground war, the West Virginia mine wars, murderers, and traveling musicians. Intense readings, valuable advice to writers. 

Scenes from his readings:  a miner sits in his house with a shotgun during the mine wars, waiting for the mine guards to come kill him -- a country musician calls his wife from the road -- a medic cradles a dying guy on the ground in Vietnam

Personal: Born 1949 and raised Parkersburg.  Family roots: Harrison and Mineral Counties. Now lives in Maryland.  Divorced, one daughter.

Publications:  Fatal Light Penguin 1988, The Wars of Heaven Houghton-Mifflin 1990, Crossing Over: A Vietnam Journal Apple-Wood 1980 and Clark City Press 1993, Lost Highway Houghton-Mifflin 1997.  Wars of Heaven 20 editions in 11 languages, title story anthologized over 15 times.  Also essayist and writer of feature articles; e.g., North American Review, Mountain Review, Albuquerque Tribune, Quarterly West, In These Times.

Education and Career:  BA West Virginia University 1974; MA Howard University 1978; MEDEX certification Physician Assistant Program 1979.  U.S.Navy Hospital Corps 1968-72, serving in Caribbean and Vietnam.  Nephrology associate Four Corners Dialysis Center, Albuquerque; Staff Physician Assistant Albuquerque Family Health Centers, Inc.  Writer-in-residence D.H.Lawrence Ranch, Taos, NM, Chesterfield Film Company, Los Angeles.  Distinguished visiting writer, Wichita (KS) State University. Contributing editor Pushcart Prize series.  

Awards:  Crossing Over: A Vietnam Journal nominated for Pulitzer Prize 1989.  D.H.Lawrence Fellowship 1981, National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships 1982 and 1978.  Pushcart Prize 1982.  Short Story Award, Associated Writing Programs 1984.  Best American Writers, Esquire, 1989.  O.Henry Award.Santa Fe Festival of the Arts Poetry Prize.

Reviewers'� Comments:  
-"Lost Highway is as eloquently piercing and deeply American as a classic folk ballad. This [story] is all told by Currey in haunting, limpid prose that allows brooding sweetness to emerge on the page like music itself." (Publishers Weekly)  
"Richard Currey writes in [a] mixture of violence and lyricism.  Fatal Light is an achingly poetic recreation of an ugly history." (Amazon.com)  
-"Currey makes you feel as if you are hearing more of the truth than a thousand pages of official history." (National Public Radio)  
-"Richard Currey achieves a stark immediacy that makes you wince--almost making you shield your eyes as you read."  (London Sunday Times)  

Richard Currey on the Web: http://www.richardcurrey.net/

See also: Literature Resource Center, Contemporary Authors Online, Biography Resource Center

Excerpts from In Their Own Country: 
Kate: When you write, do you sit and make lists of what might happen to your character? Do you sit and just visualize your character? How do you do this?    

Richard: I'm very musical. I improvise. I sit and write the way a pianist composing l might sit at the keyboard. I start with a central image ... and I go with it. And you know, sometimes it doesn't work. But generally, I'm looking for that point where the character will speak to me. And then I'm not exactly in control of it anymore.    

You'll hear this from many writers, that mystical or quasi-mystical sense that some other kind of energy speaks through you. But I think that's common in any creative art form. It certainly would be true if I were composing music. 

I listen for the sound of it. I listen for the way the themes move. And when it's affecting me powerfully, and I'm finding that the rhythm is right, the downbeat is correct, the emotional movement is moving for me, then I'm hopeful that that will be true for other people.    

About the age of 12 I decided that I wanted to be a writer. My Grandfather, God bless him, I think he recognized that I had talent, even then. He would have me - at the end of a summer day - come down and bore the rest of my family, reading little stories and poems I'd written. He was obviously very proud of these things.    

But yeah, I wanted to be a writer. It's not a case, for me at least of "I will be a literary light." I just liked to do it. It was really that simple. I liked to do it.    

Kate: Your grandfather was one of your first and best audiences, wasn't he?    

Richard: Absolutely correct. Who knows whether this man had any actual sense that his grandson was literally going to become a writer? But he valued that. That's all. He valued it.

Many, many people want to know if writing is cathartic. Or if one writes in search of catharsis. I know people certainly do. I'm sure they do. I hope it's successful. I don't. You know, I've never had that desire to relive myself of any particular burden. And in fact, nothing I have written has relieved me of any burdens. I think that what happens in one's life is exactly that. I think what we are humanly responsible for, we're responsible for. You carry those things with you forever. You can't make up for anything exactly. You might come to terms with it. You might understand it better. You might make your peace with it. Or not, as the case may be. 

For me, writing is not therapy. It's not a psychological exercise. It's a creative art form. It drives out of a different place.