Two of West Virginia University Press’s books won awards from international scholarly societies this spring. The Politics of Lists received the Julian Minghi Distinguished Book Award from the Political Geography Group of the American Association of Geographers, and The Argument about Things in the 1980s received the Arthur Miller Institute First Book Award from the British Association for American Studies. Congratulations to authors James Tyner and Tim Jelfs.

Appalachian Reckoning continues to receive attention.

• In WVU Press’s first appearance in Salon, Erin Keane positions the book among a “cohort of dazzling Appalachian talent” offering alternatives to Hillbilly Elegy.
• Keith Wilson’s contribution to the volume, the poem “Holler,” is featured in Literary Hub, and the book receives coverage from public radio and the alt weekly newspaper in Louisville.
• West Virginia Public Radio’s Inside Appalachia also profiles the book.

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Appalachian Reckoning: A Region Responds to Hillbilly Elegy is reviewed by Dwight Garner in the New York Times. He calls it “the most sustained pushback to Vance’s book . . . thus far,” and “a volley of intellectual buckshot from high up alongside the hollow.” Robert Gipe, a contributor to the volume, also appears in the Times with his op-ed piece “Appalachia Is More Diverse Than You Think.” This much-talked-about book receives additional reviews in the Daily Yonder and Chapter 16 from Humanities Tennessee, and Letitia Montgomery-Rodgers interviews the volume editors for Foreword Reviews. The title’s Morgantown launch event is available to view in its entirety thanks to the WVU College of Law.

Michael Clay Carey’s The News Untold received the Weatherford Award for the year’s best nonfiction book about Appalachia from Berea College and the Appalachian Studies Association. Tom Hansell’s After Coal was a runner-up. WVU Press is fortunate to have received two Weatherford Awards in the last three years, and to have had four finalists.

Foreword Reviews calls LGBTQ Fiction and Poetry from Appalachia “an immersive exploration of queer life within the confines of a conservative American subculture.” Editors Jeff Mann and Julia Watts will join contributors to the volume for a launch event at Malaprop’s Bookstore in Asheville, NC, on April 22.

Also in Foreword Reviews, Cassandra Kircher’s Far Flung is praised as a collection of “intimate and moving essays on nature, family, and adventures in the wild.”Read More »

In an Associated Press piece run by the Washington Post and others, Russell Contreras calls Matthew Ferrence’s Appalachia North “a lyrical homage to a region often misunderstood and overlooked,” saying “Ferrence’s engulfing prose brings to life an Appalachia north of the Mason-Dixon line.” The Indiana (PA) Gazette profiles the book in anticipation of Ferrence’s appearance at Indiana University of Pennsylvania on March 20.

Publishers Weekly calls Appalachian Reckoning: A Region Responds to Hillbilly Elegy an “impassioned collection of Appalachian regional art, essays, and poetry,” commending the volume for demonstrating that, despite stereotypes, “resilience, hope, and belonging are in Appalachia, too.” The book is also featured in the Pittsburgh Current and reviewed in the Bowling Green Daily News, which says: “If you read Hillbilly Elegy, you definitely need to pick up a copy of Appalachian Reckoning.” Editors Meredith McCarroll and Anthony Harkins will join contributors to the volume for a launch event at West Virginia University on February 25.

Booklist praises Capitalist Pigs, comparing it to one of the foundational texts of environmental history: “In the vein of William Cronon’s Nature’s Metropolis, this is a meaty, accessible, and clear-eyed agricultural history.”Read More »