Deep & Wild
On Mountains, Opossums & Finding Your Way in West Virginia
Winner of the 2023 Autumn House Nonfiction Prize, the essays in Laura Jackson's debut, Deep & Wild, chronicle the beauty and awe of Appalachia through the eyes of a lifelong West Virginian.
Jackson employs her knowledge of and curiosity for the region to describe life in West Virginia as it actually is while dismantling stereotypes portrayed in popular media with humor and tenderness. Jackson works to describe what is special about her home, looking head-on at all the ways life in West Virginia may be wonderful and terrible, beautiful and ugly. Moving beyond all-too-common Appalachian stories of hardship and poverty, Jackson’s collection revels in joy, family, and nature.
Through her essays, Jackson invites readers to peer under creek rocks for crawfish, look a little more fondly at opossums, a road trip to an annual ramp festival, and learn why not to trust a GPS along West Virginia’s rugged roads. From her living room to Appalachian hollows, Jackson approaches the sublime, seeking truths in the removal of a stump from her backyard and in John Denver’s famous song, “Take Me Home, Country Roads.”
Laura Jackson, a lifelong West Virginian, holds an MFA from Chatham University in Pittsburgh. Her work has appeared in many places, including Terrain, Brevity, and more, and she writes regularly for Wonderful West Virginia and West Virginia Living magazines. Laura’s essay, “The Imperfect Aquarist” was listed as notable in Best American Essays 2021. She works at West Virginia University as a research writer, rescues homeless animals, and spends time with her sons on mountains and in rivers.
