Joe Halstead
| Joe Halstead | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | Joseph Sherman Halstead May 29, 1988 Beckley, West Virginia, U.S. |
| 🏡 Residence | Lexington, Kentucky, U.S. |
| 🏳️ Nationality | American |
| 💼 Occupation | Novelist |
Joe Halstead (born May 29, 1988) is an American writer. He lives in Lexington, Kentucky and is perhaps best known for his semi-autobiographical novel West Virginia. Publishers Weekly called the book "beautiful, menacing."[1]
Biography[edit]
Halstead grew up the son of a coal miner in Mount Lookout, West Virginia. His first forays into literature came early, focusing on imitations of Breece D'J Pancake, John Steinbeck, and J.D. Salinger. As he began his teenage years, he wrote stories about blue-collar realism and the snarl of Appalachia.
After high school, he attended Tisch School of the Arts at New York University, where he had a writing teacher who inspired him to pursue his writing outside of institutions of higher learning. While in New York City he wrote short stories for different American literary magazines including The Stockholm Review, Cheat River Review, The Sheepshead Review and others. He returned to West Virginia in 2013 and began writing West Virginia (Unnamed Press, January)[2]. In its review of West Virginia, Electric Literature called the novel, "a classic depiction of existentialist struggle between the individual’s “facticity” and his desire to be more than his facticity."[3]
Influenced by authors such as Breece Pancake, Haruki Murakami, Mercè Rodoreda, Scott McClanahan, Gurney Norman, and Yuri Herrera, his body of work aims to create conversations about what is considered home and identity.[4]
References[edit]
- ↑ "1/10/2017 Publishers Weekly review". Retrieved January 10, 2017.
- ↑ "If My Book..." Retrieved April 18, 2017.
- ↑ "The Time Has Come for Joe Halstead to Return to Dimension Z". Retrieved January 26, 2017.
- ↑ ""I Can Still Feel It Looming Over Me": Joe Halstead on West Virginia and "West Virginia"". Retrieved January 9, 2017.
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