{"id":14766,"date":"2026-04-30T08:34:05","date_gmt":"2026-04-30T12:34:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/regalhousepublishing.com\/?page_id=14766"},"modified":"2026-04-30T08:34:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-30T12:34:07","slug":"larry-bingham","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/regalhousepublishing.com\/larry-bingham\/","title":{"rendered":"Larry Bingham"},"content":{"rendered":"
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When my twin brother died at 27 of an accidental overdose, my stoic father cried. The sound he made was nothing like I had ever heard. It was an animal cry, primal in its pain, and I will never forget it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I started writing Minerville<\/em>, my debut novel, to try to understand a man like my father. He is a third generation coal miner who was raised to suppress his emotions, a man who prides himself on working hard and providing for his family. Over time, the book became an exploration of a life spent working a mile underground and how that labor shapes a man and his community\u2014and how it eventually shaped me, the son who left home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was born and raised in the southwest corner of Virginia, twelve miles south of the West Virginia state line, in a small coal town not unlike my fictional Minerville. My father mined coal. His father mined coal. His father\u2019s father mined coal. I was the first in four generations to go to college, and I know well the price you pay to leave. That cost is at the heart of everything I write.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I became a daily newspaper reporter, working my way from Virginia to North Carolina to Texas to Maryland, where I worked at The Baltimore Sun<\/em>, before ending my journalism career at The Oregonian<\/em> in Portland, about as far from Appalachia as a person can go. Those 24 years spent telling other people\u2019s stories polished skills I\u2019d need to tell one of my own. Along the way I earned an MFA in fiction writing from the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College. For years, I drafted Minerville<\/em> during weekday mornings before the sun rose, and on weekends, all the while working fulltime and raising a family. An excerpt from the novel was awarded the Jean Ritchie Fellowship for Appalachian Writing, and I\u2019ve also received an Oregon Literary Arts Fellowship. I\u2019m at work on a second novel, a ghost story set at a small liberal arts college in Appalachia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although Portland is far from the place I will always call home, I have lived here for twenty-two years with my wife, Karen. We have two adult sons, two golden retrievers, and a kitten named Earl.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I write the Substack newsletter First to Leave<\/a> and can be found at larrybingham.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Regal House Publishing is proud to bring you Larry Bingham’s Minerville<\/em> in 2028.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When my twin brother died at 27 of an accidental overdose, my stoic father cried. The sound he made was nothing like I had ever heard. It was an animal cry, primal in its pain, and I will never forget it. I started writing Minerville, my debut novel, to try to understand a man like […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":{"0":"post-14766","1":"page","2":"type-page","3":"status-publish","5":"entry"},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/P9DpGh-3Qa","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":14234,"url":"https:\/\/regalhousepublishing.com\/michael-c-white\/","url_meta":{"origin":14766,"position":0},"title":"Michael C. 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