Twice a year we share our seasonal catalog announcing titles to be published in the next six months. But WVU Press’s acquisitions editors are always at work (even in a pandemic!) signing books where publication is even further out. In this space we’re pleased to share early news of some highly anticipated projects that have come under contract this summer, with publication expected in the next year or two. Working on a book of your own? Please feel encouraged to contact one of our acquisitions editors.

Eminent historian Joe Trotter has signed a contract for a collection of his essays on Black workers and the Appalachian coal industry. Look for it in fall 2021.

Anne T. Lawrence has submitted her oral history of the Appalachian Mine Wars, based on interviews she conducted as a student in the early ‘70s. We’ll publish next year to mark the Blair Mountain Centennial, with a foreword by Catherine Venable Moore and an afterword by Cecil E. Roberts, president of the United Mine Workers of America. Catherine announces the book here.

Lou Martin at Chatham University has agreed to write a short history of Appalachian activism, from the Mine Wars to the teachers’ strike.

In higher education, Catherine Denial has come under contract to write a book about pedagogies of kindness. Get an early look at her work on the topic here. And Jessamyn Neuhaus, author of our successful Geeky Pedagogy, has returned to us for her next book, a collection with the working title So You Don’t Look Like a Professor: Insights into Effective Teaching and Learning from Women, Marginalized, and Underrepresented Faculty. There’s still time to submit an essay for consideration!

West Virginia University’s own Amy Alvarez is part of a team (with Pamela Gemmed, Shana Hill, and Alexis Ivy) working on Essential: Voices of the Vulnerable, an anthology that seeks to share the voices of the vulnerable populations who have been impacted by COVID-19. It will appear in our new series Borderless.

And in our series on feminist geographies, Dahlia Bhattacharjee will write about “wombs for rent”—a study of the lives of women working in India’s commercial surrogacy industry.

We’re bringing in new books and authors all the time, and the easiest way to keep up is on social media. Please throw us a follow on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram!