Jim Ralston has taught English for thirty-plus years at
four Appalachian colleges and universities: Frostburg State
University and Garret Community College, in Western
Maryland; Shepherd University and, presently, Blue Ridge
Community and Technical College in the eastern panhandle of
West Virginia.
In addition to Appalachian Grammar Shop, he has written five
produced plays, most recently "Thirty Folds to the Moons,"
produced at the New Embassy Theatre in Cumberland, MD; "The
Lone Star League," at the the Performance Center of
Frostburg State University; and "Many Mansions" at the
Apollo Theatre in Martinsburg, West Virginia.
He has published an introspective novel, The Choice of
Emptiness, a book of Poems, The Poet's Car, two children's
books, Sylvia and Sylvia's Father; has served as a columnist
for the Charleston Gazette and the Martinsburg Journal-News,
and has been a regular contributor to The Sun: A Magazine of
Ideas. His writings have also appeared in the Pittsburgh
Post-Gazette and The Utne Reader.