Silas House

Silas House is the New York Times bestselling author of seven novels, including Lark Ascending (Algonquin Books, 2022), which was a Booklist Editors’ Choice and the winner of the 2023 Southern Book Prize; Same Sun Here (Candlewick, 2012); Something’s Rising: Appalachians Fighting Mountaintop Removal (University Press of Kentucky, 2011), coauthored with Jason Kyle Howard; Southernmost (Algonquin Books, 2018); Eli the Good (Candlewick Press, 2010); The Coal Tattoo (Blair, 2005); A Parchment of Leaves (Ballantine Books, 2003); and Clay’s Quilt (Blair, 2001).

House is the recipient of three honorary degrees and other honors, including an E. B. White Award, the Lee Smith Award, the Caritas Medal, the Hobson Medal, and the Duggins Prize. In 2015, he was invited to read at the Library of Congress.

House is a member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers and a former commentator on NPR’s All Things Considered. He is the executive producer and one of the subjects of the documentary Hillbilly, winner of the L.A. Film Festival’s Documentary Prize and the Foreign Press Association’s Media Award. His novel Southernmost is currently in pre-production as a feature film. House teaches at Berea College, where he is the National Endowment for the Humanities Chair, and at the Naslund-Mann Graduate School of Writing. A native of Eastern Kentucky, House serves as Kentucky’s poet laureate through 2024 and lives in Lexington, Kentucky.