The University Press of Kentucky Releases EVERY LEAF A MIRROR: A JIM WAYNE MILLER READER

Jim Wayne Miller (1936-1996) was a prolific writer, a revered teacher and scholar, and a pioneer in the field of Appalachian studies. During his thirty-three-year tenure at Western Kentucky University, he helped build programs in the discipline in Kentucky, Tennessee, and Ohio, and worked tirelessly to promote regional voices by presenting the work of others as often as he did his own. An innovative poet, essayist, and short story writer, Miller was one of the founding fathers and animating spirits of the Appalachian renaissance. "Jim was the first person I ever heard talk about such a thing as Appalachian writing," said novelist Robert Morgan.

In Every Leaf a Mirror: A Jim Wayne Miller Reader, editors Morris Allen Grubbs and Mary Ellen Miller seek to honor and revive the legacy of this influential members of the Appalachian writing community. The reader, with commentary by Miller's widow and frequent editor Mary Ellen Miller, includes work from his books of poetry Miracle and Mystery,Slow Darkness, and Family-Love, Marriage, Children, among others. The book also features an extensive collection of Miller's fiction and nonfiction, including excerpts from his novels Newfound and His First, Best Country, both of which explore the vastness of Appalachian culture and history.

Born in 1936 and raised in rural North Carolina, Miller charted his course to Kentucky through Berea College, where he earned a degree in English before moving to Vanderbilt University as part of a German studies program. A roving ambassador for the literature and culture of the Appalachian region, Miller also served as a professor of German at Western Kentucky University. Many never understood the strange division between his careers as an Appalachian writer and German scholar, but for Miller, German culture and poetry shared a sense of connection to a specific place and people like that of Appalachia.

Miller was a friend and mentor whose work was in constant dialogue with the passage of time and Appalachian history. In the poem "Every Leaf a Mirror" (which lends its name to this collection), Miller strikes an elegiac tone as he imagines his reflection on the leaves of the mountain's trees-his image, once set against a simpler time, now placed against a changing, modern landscape. Documenting these rapid and drastic disruptions to life in the region became one of Miller's recurring themes. In the time since his passing, few writers or personalities have been able to better describe and enact the sense of loss and the paradoxes of identity in the mountains.

Perhaps fittingly, one story appearing in print for the first time in Every Leaf a Mirror is Miller's fictional account of his fellow Kentucky writer and friend, James Still. "Truth and Fiction," was a draft which Miller planned to publish following Still's death. The older Still outlived him by almost five years. The story attempts to provide an explanation of why Still-renamed "McLean"-never returned to his pre-World War II levels of productivity, a mystery that has puzzled many. Miller's own output of writing never waned, though he died shy of his sixtieth birthday, cutting short a dynamic career. Every Leaf a Mirror is a rejuvenating selection of Miller's influential work that firmly re-establishes his voice in the Appalachian community.

Morris Allen Grubbs is assistant dean in the graduate school at the University of Kentucky. He is the editor of Home and Beyond: An Anthology of Kentucky Short Stories andConversations with Wendell Berry.

Mary Ellen Miller, the widow of Jim Wayne Miller, is professor of English at Western Kentucky University. She is the author of The Poet's Wife Speaks.

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