R H PeakeEmeritus Professor of English at the University of Virginia's College at Wise, Peake has lived and taught in the coalfields of Southwest Virginiafor over forty years. He lived through the coal boom of the late 1960s and early 1970s and worked for senible reclamation laws. He experienced phone calls at early hours in the morning with deep breathing and curses, but he sympathized with mountain people's desire to gain some wealth from their coal, wealth that in earlier years went to Philadelphia, New York, and England. An amateur ornithologist, he has published Birds of the Virginia Cumberlands, several collections of poetry, and an academic satire, Jack, Be Nimble. Read More Read Less