Erin Ann Thomas

ERIN ANN THOMAS {[email protected]} earned an MFA in creative nonfiction from George Mason University and has also published poetry and taught at Northern Virginia Community College. She currently lives in Alexandria, Virginia, and is a technical editor for IBM. Her essay is from Coal in Our Veins: A Personal Journey, a creative nonfiction narrative (forthcoming).

Ghost Towns

Articles/Essays – Volume 43, No. 4

George Borrow, an English travel writer, descended from the hills one evening in 1854 to report on Merthyr Tydfil, Wales, at that time the busiest iron smelting and coal town in the common wealth. I imagine he used a walking stick, picking his way through the mountain brush of the South Wales hills to a valley of light and a hillside of blazes. On reaching the valley, he identified the source of brilliance to be lava-like material that zigzagged down the hill above him.