Homer Hickam, Jr. 

West Virginia’s story has been told by many gifted authors and when Homer Hickam, Jr. debuted his novel, Rocket Boys, in 1998, he brought a great new voice to the state’s literary pantheon. Telling the story of how he and his friends became inspired to study rockets in high school, Hickham showed the full arc of a life in the southern coalfields to becoming an engineer for NASA, proving we all have it in us to shoot for the moon.