While his name might not be familiar to many Australians, Ron Rash has long been a critically acclaimed writer in the United States. Originally a poet, Rash published several collections of short stories before breaking new ground in 2002 with his first novel, One Foot in Eden, a work of Southern Gothic. Serena, an epic novel about a timber baroness with unwavering, brutal ambition, expanded Rash’s celebrity internationally. The novel was nominated for the PEN/ Faulkner Award for Fiction, and was named Book of the Year in The New York Times, Washington Post and Publishers Weekly.

A Southern author writing in the tradition of William Faulkner, Flannery O’Connor and Cormac McCarthy, Rash’s work finds its cornerstone in the mountains of Appalachia. Burning Bright, his most recent short stories, is a collection of dark love letters to the rugged people, language and landscape of rural Carolina. From construction workers plundering the graves of dead confederates to a boy who discovers a plane crash deep in the Smoky Mountains, Burning Bright contains the grace, purity and concision of language for which Rash is renowned.

Kill Your Darlings spoke with Ron Rash about Burning Bright, what it means to write out of a singular locale, and the mystery of inspiration.

– Hannah Kent