I have read so many books in my life that sometimes I'll check one out from the library and then think, wait this sounds familiar, and find that I've already read it. How embarrassing! I love Appalachian fiction and that's what I would like to write-the Big Appalachian Novel.

• White's Mill - a historic landmark just outside Abingdon which Donna works to help restore as a board member of the White's Mill Foundation
• Appalachian Writers Association

• Lee Smith
• Sharyn McCrumb
• Silas House
• Lou Crabtree (poet)
• Jeff Daniel Mariaon (poet)
• Kaye Gibbons
• Lisa Alther
• Eudora Welty
• Isobel Zuber
• Kay Byer
• Jill McCorkle
• Any of the Best Stories from the South edited by Shannon Ravenel
• Bobbie Ann Mason
• Pam Duncan
• Josephine Humphreys
• Harriette Arnow
• Huston Curtis