A lyrical literary memoir of Scranton, Pennsylvania,
Black Diamonds uncovers layers of history about the place that fueled the nation for over a century. As a girl in the 1960s, Catherine Young lived amid mountains of waste coal above ground and mine fires beneath her feet while longing for the green, lovely scene portrayed in The Lackawanna Valley, George Inness’s 1855 painting. She shows readers the valley through a child’s eyes, passing through the immigrant kitchens, relief lines, and soot-stained alleys of a collapsing city—and family love amid lives cut short by coal.
Tentang Penulis
Catherine Young worked as a national park ranger, farmer, educator, and mother before putting her heart into her writing. She earned an MFA in Creative Writing at the University of British Columbia, and holds degrees in Geography, Environmental Science, and Education. Catherine is author of the ecopoetry collection,
Geosmin. She deeply believes in the use of story and art as tools for transforming the world, and she holds concern for water. Rooted in farmlife, Catherine writes with a keen sense of place and lives with her family in the Driftless region of Wisconsin.