Rash's poems and stories have appeared in more than 100 magazines and journals. Serena received enthusiastic reviews across and beyond the United States and was a 2009 PEN/Faulkner Award Finalist. In addition to being a bestselling novelist, Rash has achieved international acclaim as a short story author, winning the Frank O'Connor Award in 2010 for Burning Bright. Recent work such as The Outlaws demonstrates Rash's ability to create universal tragedies out of ordinary lives in southern Appalachia. Scholars have praised his ability to find the universal within the particulars of place, citing his writing's "universal appeal, lyrical grace, and narrative efficiency." Jim Coby examined Rash's use of mystery thriller tropes in One Foot in Eden. Ron Rash holds the John and Dorothy Parris Professorship in Appalachian Cultural Studies at Western Carolina University, where he teaches poetry and fiction-writing in the Department of English.
List of works
Poetry
Eureka Mill
* interweaves his family's personal migration from Buncombe County, NC farms with the broader portrait of mill life outside Chester, South Carolina
Among the Believers
Raising the Dead
* Deals with loss and displacement as a result of the flooding of Jocassee Valley, S.C.
* Thirteen short stories, eight of which were previously published in Casualties. Also includes the O. Henry Prize Winner "Speckled Trout" as well as "Pemberton's Bride," a story that gives a taste of Rash's forthcoming novel.
Burning Bright
Nothing Gold Can Stay
Novels
One Foot in Eden
* Fleshes out the characters and themes of Raising the Dead. It tells the story of a community displaced disguised as a murder mystery and imbued with Rash's poetic language.
* About a South Carolina community torn over the issue of environmentalism.
The World Made Straight
* Both a coming-of-age story set in the 1970s Appalachia and a meditation on the role of the past in the present, in this case a Civil War massacre that has divided Madison County, N.C. ever since.
* Adapted to a feature film, released in 2015
Serena
* The ambitious wife of a North Carolina timber baron, Serena, brings the spirit of Lady MacBeth to depression-era North Carolina.
* Adapted to a feature film, released in 2014
The Cove
* A family is afflicted with a series of grave misfortunes. Their lives, particularly Laurel's, are interrupted at the arrival of a mute stranger who has been found after suffering a severe number of wasp stings.
Above the Waterfall
* Set in contemporary Appalachia, about lives shaped by violence and a powerful connection to the land.
The Short story "Speckled Trout" was included in the 2005 O. Henry Prize Stories. This story formed the basis for the first chapter of The World Made Straight.
The Cove was listed as #16 for Hardcover Fiction in the April 29, 2012 issue of The New York Times Book Review and remained on the list as #29, #22, and #31 for the three subsequent weeks.
Nothing Gold Can Stay was listed as #28 for Hardcover Fiction in the March 10, 2013 issue of The New York TimesBook Review.
