Her first novel, Strange As This Weather Has Been (Counterpoint 2007), features a southern West Virginia family devastated by mountaintop removal mining. Based on interviews and real events, the novel was one of Kirkus Review's Top Ten Fiction Books of 2007, won the 2007 Weatherford Award, and was a finalist for the 2008 Orion Book Award.
Pancake's first collection of short stories, Given Ground, won the 2000 Bakeless award, and she has also received a Whiting Award, an NEA Grant, a Pushcart Prize, and creative writing fellowships from the states of Washington, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania. Her fiction and essays have appeared in journals and anthologies like The Georgia Review, Poets and Writers, Narrative, and New Stories from the South. She earned her BA in English at West Virginia University and a PhD. in English Literature from the University of Washington.
She has taught creative writing and composition at the University of Washington, Penn State (Erie), the low-residence writing program at Pacific Lutheran University, and Appalachian fiction at West Virginia University. She lives near Morgantown in a small rural town with big stories.
She has taught creative writing and composition at the University of Washington, Penn State (Erie), the low-residence writing program at Pacific Lutheran University, and Appalachian fiction at West Virginia University. She lives near Morgantown in a small rural town with big stories.
