Small Town Girl (opens in new tab)

Jayne Anne Phillips in 1980. Jayne Anne Phillips was a literary wunderkind who counted Sam Shepard and Jim Harrison among her fans. Her latest book revisits her childhood in rural Appalachia By Nancy Schoenberger Jayne Anne Phillips was just 26 when her first book of short stories, the 1976 collection Black Tickets, was published to a howl of praise. Such sudden attention can be disorienting to a young writer, but Phillips says, “From the very beginning, I paid no attention. I felt that I had...