Jim Wayne Miller's 1980 poetry collection The Mountains Have Come Closer expresses the realization that Appalachia is part of a bigger world and ever changing, its culture cherished by inhabitants and those whose lives have taken them beyond the mountains. This website will explore the  literature and writers who frame and present this region to the rest of the world. Through fiction, non-fiction and poetry Appalachia comes alive through words and images that define the culture and challenge the stereotypes still rife in society.