In August, Nantahala Review editors Mark Roberts, Cy Dillon, Rob Merritt and Joe Champagne visited me, here in Tuckaseegee, and we spent the better part of two days talking, eating and walking the woods of Jackson County. During our spirited conversations, both here at my house in the Little Canada community and up on a piece of property that I once owned on John’s Creek in the Caney Fork community--where there is a Jung/Yeats/Jeffers-inspired tower that I built in 1988 and a wonderful one-room sawmill cabin--we talked of many things, ranging from writer-related subjects to current U.S. government policies at home and abroad. In the end, it seemed as if all our conversations kept coming back to the idea of “diversity” and how our individual differences are not only what give us our sense of identity, but also give us, collectively, a common bond--this reasoning also holding true for the interspecies relationships we have with other plants and animals in the natural world. In the end, we were all in agreement, I think, that living in a diverse environment was not only a preferred state of affairs, but something that was necessary to the well-being and possibly even the survival of all species, including us humans.

This idea of diversity, also, we found, spilled over into more philosophical and creative areas, such as literature and the arts. Specifically, how living in a monoculture such as America affects the arts, and more specifically, how writers write and what they write about. Discussions on topics such as “carrying capacity” and “overpopulation” were outgrowths of our talks on diversity. Topics which, too, are important to the subject of writing and the writer’s life.

My guests from Virginia were interested in how my life and my writing had gone in so many different directions over the years--and in that sense, had been so “diverse.” So, we talked at length about my short attention span, my personal and literary interests, travels and where I had lived--which brought us to another crossroads and discovery: that the notion of “place” was something that had permeated my work. This epiphany spawned further conversations concerning bioregionalism, community, and one’s “literary kin.” These subjects and more were addressed and covered in a video-taped interview that was done during our two days together, the transcript of which is included as part of this fall issue of the Nantahala Review.

I wish to thank all four NR editors for indulging me in my love of single-malt scotch and grits, and for inviting me to guest-edit this fine on-line magazine which has brought me into their lives and their world as regards the Appalachian Colleges Assn. and the network of schools and places this organization represents throughout the Appalachian Mountain chain and its various borderlands. My experience with them and with the writers that I have brought with me to this issue, has been a joyful if not mind-expanding one. We are blessed with a great diversity of personalities, writing styles, subject matter and genres, here in the Southern Appalachians, and I hope that this is made evident in the contributions/contributors which comprise this issue of NR. I think you’ll find that there is everything here from A to Z, and then some. These guys are all over the map--both literally and figuratively. I only hope that, you, the reader, will enjoy visiting with these friends of mine as much as I enjoy their company and what they create.

Thomas Rain Crowe

Fall Equinox, 2003