Light That Splits the Dark: The Solitude Papers II

Edited by: Paul Elmo KeenanPublishers Place is proud to issue its second collection of high-school writing out of solitude, Light that Splits the Dark, edited by Paul Elmo Keenan and featuring photographs by Mark S. Phillips. This slender volume packages prose and poetry from five West Virginia high schools, written under guidelines provided by John Patrick Grace and in the spirit of an earlier collection titled River Fog Rising. The first collection of “the solitude papers” derived from a class that Grace taught for Marshall University credit for students from three Mason County high schools, Point Pleasant, Wahama and Hannan. Both collections exemplify an innovative approach to composition for students, based on setting a mood of deep introspection and encouraging an unself-conscious “taking notes on one’s thoughts.”