Monday, October 25, 1999

Creative writing grad pens first novel
A graduate of UGA’s creative writing program, Karen Salyer McElmurray grew up in eastern Kentucky. Her debut novel, Strange Birds in the Tree of Heaven, is the first to be published by a graduate of that UGA program.
Set in Mining Hollow in eastern Kentucky, Strange Birds in the Tree of Heaven introduces readers to Ruth Blue Wallen; her husband, Earl Wallen; and their son, Andrew. Ruth longs to know God, the only escape she can find in a world that has shown her spiritual, emotional and sensual defeat. Earl Wallen yearns for the music making of his past, now given up in order to make a living as a coal miner. Andrew desires the love of his boyhood friend, Henry, and their mutual passion is ultimately fulfilled, an expression of love considered sinful in eastern Kentucky.
And, with the divinely inspired yet tormenting help of his mother, in a world of deeply and tragically conflicting desires, Andrew must choose to live or die. He must choose an uncertain love or nothing at all.
McElmurray, who now lives in Lynchburg, Va., is an assistant professor of creative writing at Lynchburg College. She is currently working on a new book about her own life, tentatively titled Mother of the Disappeared.
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