Storming Heaven
by Denise Giardina
Other Sources
relating to Storming Heaven
- 1998 radio interview
RealAudio® interview with Giardina, part of the February 26, 1998 broadcast of WHYY/National Public Radio’s Fresh Air with Terry Gross. The interviewer is Marty Moss-Coane, sitting in for Gross, and much of the discussion is about Giardina’s 1998 novel, Saints and Villains. The Giardina segment starts about halfway through the show, at 30:04.1 (it’s a one-hour recording).
- Essay on Denise Giardina
by Georgia Steinhardt, from an Appalachian Literature course at Virginia Tech
- The Era of the Mine Wars
from an Appalachian Studies WebCourse at the University of Kentucky
- Matewan, WV
This up-to-date, local perspective on the region and its past troubles includes an account of the real town of Matewan (the novel’s Annadel), where, on May 19, 1920, Mayor C. Testerman (the novel’s C.J. Marcum) was shot and killed while trying to arrest Baldwin-Felts guards for evicting miners from their homes at the Stone Mountain Mining Camp (the novel’s Jenkinjones).
- Electronic Field Trip to a Coal Mine
The oppressive conditions depicted in Giardina’s novel existed in the southern West Virginia coal fields of 75 years ago. Modern mining—specifically, modern mining in Kentucky—can look and feel very different. In December 1995, KET aired a live Electronic Field Trip to a coal mine; these companion web pages include many coal-related study aides.
- Kentucky Life Program 425
includes a segment about Barthell, a restored coal-mining company town in McCreary County, Eastern Kentucky.
- Operators and union face market pressures together
Another indication of the changing face of mining and mining interests is this 1999 Associated Press report about cooperation between the United Mine Workers of America and the coal operators, spurred by new pressures from the “global economy.”
- More study questions
Another set of discussion/study questions for readers of Storming Heaven.
- Whatever Happened to Blair Mountain?
Articles in a special section of the online Charleston Gazette include modern photographs of West Virginia’s Blair Mountain and environs.
- Coal industry statistics
The National Mining Association maintains a web site including many charts and tables related to coal and coal mining—including a statistical profile of a coal miner, injury and fatality trends from 1930 to 1997, and the numbers of union and non-union miners in American mines.
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