Since the publication of Rocket Boys (aka October Sky),
 the first memoir of my "Coalwood" series, I have been humbled
 by the heartfelt messages sent to me from all over the world. 
 Thousands of people have written to say that my stories of
growing up in a small West Virginia mining town have given
 them hope, inspiration, and the realization that dreams can 
be turned into reality.  In a hardworking, dirty little place
 that perhaps had no right to dream, that existed for the sole 
purpose of sending its men into a deep and dangerous underground
coal mine, a special people were forged who dared to teach their
children to fearlessly launch their dreams into the sky.   Between
1957 and 1960, six boys, inspired by the sight of the world's first
earth satellite flying over Coalwood, did just that by building
sophisticated rockets that, against all odds, captured a gold medal
in the National Science Fair.  Although the "Rocket Boys" were to
become the most famous of Coalwood's citizens, fans of the books have
come to admire all the people of the little town deep in the
mountains.  It is their wit and wisdom, I'm so often told, that give
readers special insight on life, love, and the value of perseverance 
to triumph over adversity. 
That these stories ever got told at all is a miracle.  In 1994 ,
pressed to come up with a short article for a magazine under a
 tight deadline,  I quickly wrote 2,000 words about building
 rockets as a West Virginia teenager.  I didn't much expect the
 article to be published and even if it did, I thought that would
 be the end of it.  But as soon as the article came out, letters
 and phone calls began to pour in with people saying they wanted
 more, more of those feisty rocket boys, more of my parents and
 their heartrending war on how they would raise their sons, more
 of the little town and its preachers, teachers, miners, and
 characters too grand and peculiar to be anything but real.  
Encouraged and inspired, I began to write the first book.
As the book took form, I began to see Coalwood suddenly came
alive again.  Its miners, helmets perched on their heads, 
trudged up the old path to the mine, their lunch pails clunking
 against their legs.  People bustled in and out of the Company
 store and gathered on the church steps after Sunday services
 to talk about high school football, to chew over events 
in the mine, to ponder the nature of the outside world. 
 My father, a man who loved Coalwood more than life
itself, was once more leading his men in their daily assault
against the deep coal.  My mother was in her kitchen, in
 her refuge in front of the big painted picture of the beach
 and the ocean that represented her dreams for the future. 
My dog waited in my basement laboratory, his stubby tail
 wagging at the sight of me.  In my room, there was my old
 desk and the book our teacher Miss Riley had given us, the
 one with all the answers on how to build a rocket written in a
mathematical script no one believed we could learn but we had,
against all odds. The church bell was ringing as we boys stood
 on the roof of the old Club House and peered through the telescope
 a junior engineer had loaned us, to see once more the bands of 
Jupiter, the rings of Saturn, the craters of the moon.  The
old high school was there, the halls ringing with the excitement
 of youth, the classrooms echoing with our lessons, the awareness
 slowly dawning on us that we were the designated refugees of our
 town and our school that we were being prepared to leave and never
 return.  Everything and everyone was still there, all in their places,

 defining the path, urging me along it to finally where my
father waited, standing alone on that old slack dump we Rocket Boys
 called Cape Coalwood while our last rocket soared overhead.  
That was to be the great moment of reconciliation and redemption
between my  dad and me.  All I had to do was write it all down to
 get there.  And so I did, in the book that was to become a
#1 New York Times Best-Seller.
After the success of Rocket Boys, I went even deeper in the
follow-on The Coalwood Way to tell of the special rituals of
 the little town, of the strengths and resolve that kept it 
going, and of the wisdom of the old ways.  And now there's the
 third memoir, Sky of Stone, which brings me back to Coalwood after
the era of the Rocket Boys, at a time when there was trouble but,
as always, hopes and dreams bursting to come true.  Perhaps that
 is the key as to why these stories are so loved by so many. 
 Coalwood is not just a place of stone and coal and mountains. 
 It is wherever a people might yet dare to dream