In Salon, Alison Stine interviews Neema Avashia about her book Another Appalachia, noting: “There are so many lines in this book that I underlined and so many quotes that I’m going to take away from it.” Avashia’s book is named to the Book Riot list “18 of the Best Asian American Books to Read This Year,” and is selected by the book club at Pittsburgh’s City Paper. It receives attention in Daily Yonder (“Appalachia needs more people like Neema Avashia”), Southern Review of Books (“revelatory”), Inside Appalachia, and GO Magazine, as well as the podcasts Perks of Being a Book Lover and (from Skylight Books in Los Angeles) Skylit. White Whale Bookstore names Another Appalachia its bestselling book for the month of March.
Avashia writes in Electric Lit about “7 Books That Show a Different Side of Appalachia,” praising (among others) WVU Press titles The Harlan Renaissance and Appalachian Reckoning.
Jason Kapcala’s Hungry Town is reviewed in the Akron Beacon Journal: “These flawed people, dealt a losing hand, will not soon be forgotten.”
In Mississippi, an opinion piece for the Meridian Star calls Charles Dodd White’s A Year without Months “a treasure.”
A Union for Appalachian Healthcare Workers is praised as a “meticulously researched window into the dynamics of a small activist union” in West Virginiaville, and author John Hennen is interviewed at Daily Yonder.
Shaun Slifer, author of So Much to Be Angry About, writes in Viewpoint Magazine about Appalachian Movement Press and one of its publications—Dan Cutler’s The Hillbillys: A Book for Children. Slifer’s essay cites WVU Press books by Neema Avashia and William H. Turner.
On Dark and Bloody Ground, Anne T. Lawrence’s oral history of the Mine Wars, is reviewed at the blog from the New York Labor History Association: “The collected stories here are memorable.”
A profile in Vanderbilt Magazine celebrates the career of Kate Daniels, author of Slow Fuse of the Possible. “It is Daniels herself who has helped foster an empathetic environment on campus—in terms of her writing, her close work with faculty colleagues in multiple departments, and by serving as a trusted, caring mentor to young writers.”
The Chronicle of Higher Education‘s newsletter on teaching quotes Cyndi Kernahan, author of Teaching about Race and Racism in the College Classroom.
Leading Lines talks with Susan Hrach about her book Minding Bodies.
In other higher education news, Jenae Cohn, author of Skim, Dive, Surface, collaborates on the opinion piece “Why We Need a Socially Responsible Approach to ‘Social Reading’” in Hechinger Report.
And finally, Jane Friedman’s newsletter about publishing makes the case for “Why You Should Consider a University Press for Your Book,” pointing to our recent successes. “West Virginia University Press . . . has earned the sort of recognition and media attention you’d typically expect from a hip new indie press or house ten times its size.”
Don’t miss the new author events on our calendar, including Mark Powell and Charles Dodd White in a virtual book launch with White Whale Books, plus Neema Avashia at the Greater Pittsburgh Festival of Books.