Catherine Holm, of rural Cook, has a gift for storytelling and an emotional connection with her subject matter that shines through in a new collection of stories just released by Holy Cow! Press.

Titled My Heart is a Mountain, Holm offers readers 11 works of fiction and a short remembrance of her father in which she gives thanks for the genes that have kept her connected to the rural landscape.

Her stories are varied and personal, with an efficiency of prose that is the hallmark of all good short fiction. In this collection, we read of disappearing men, detours, and transcendence.

“Holm writes with great and winning assurance and with nuanced compassion,” writes Robert Olen Butler, Putlizer Prize-winning author of A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain. “My Heart is a Mountain is a truly lovely book by a fine writer.”

My Heart is a Mountain is available in paperback for $15 at a number of local shops, including the Comet Theatre, Gilley’s Naturals, and Furniture Plus Gifts and Video, all in Cook. In Ely, it’s available at Second Floor Bookstore, the Pebble Spa, and Evergreen Cottage. You can also find it in Virginia at Woodward’s Books, and online at holycowpress.org.