Corbin residents will have the opportunity to meet Appalachian author and U.S. veteran Ronnie Deaton at an upcoming book signing later this month.
The book signing will take place at 6 p.m. on March 26 at the Corbin Public Library’s Miller Mitchell Annex. The event, sponsored by Friends of the Corbin Public Library, will have refreshments and feature a book signing by the author.
Deaton, born in 1945 in Laurel County, found his calling as a writer around 2015 while collaborating with his wife, Penny Ferguson, on a five-year research project tracing their family roots. The work culminated in the genealogy book From Whence Cometh Thou: 600 Years of Deatons and Allied Families Indexed and Ahnentafel, published in 2022.
Deaton turned to novel writing at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and quickly established a distinctive voice in Appalachian fiction and nonfiction, drawing from Kentucky folklore. His titles include The Ghost Bride of Cumberland Falls, Rufus and Arnold: The Mountain Boys, The Trial of Lessie Johnson, and many more.
His most recent book, the memoir Soul of the Hills: An Appalachian Life and a Call to Remember, published in February of this year, offers a “personal, unflinching portrait of real Appalachia, its profound human richness, resilience, and a call to remember its true heart,” according to his bio.
With 18 published books, Deaton continues to capture the true beauty of the Appalachian Mountains.
