“Another Appalachia is as good as everyone says, and better,” reports Garrett Robinson in a review for Read Appalachia. Neema Avashia’s book is selected by the New York Public Library for their list “New LGBTQ Nonfiction for Pride,” named one of “50 LGBTQ+ Books to Read Now & Always” in Bustle, and chosen as a summer reading pick at Kenyon Review, Garden & Gun, and the Bitter Southerner. Attention from bookstores continues, with City of Asylum in Pittsburgh naming it one of the year’s best books so far, and the owner of Yu and Me praising Avashia’s “thoughtful, raw, honest” event at her store in New York.
Rounding out its coverage this month, Another Appalachia receives positive notice from Longreads, Chapter 16, and the Athens (OH) Post. Avashia will appear at a Pride event in Huntington, WV, on June 25, as previewed in the Herald-Dispatch.
An NPR travel feature with state-by-state book recommendations picks Eyes Glowing at the Edge of the Woods, edited by Laura Long and Doug Van Gundy, to represent West Virginia. The volume is called “a wonderful illustration of the complexity of the state and its literary landscape.”
Deesha Philyaw’s The Secret Lives of Church Ladies makes the Boston Globe‘s summer reading list (“the secrets do not disappoint”). Philyaw is featured in Black Pittsburgh and LitHub, and her appearance in the documentary film Introducing Brian Broome receives attention on public radio station WESA.
In a review for Still: The Journal, Charles Dodd White’s book A Year without Months is held up as “necessary reading for anyone interested in the changing world of the modern mountain south.” It’s named one of the month’s best southern books in the Southern Review of Books.
A reported piece in the Chronicle of Higher Education praises the “well-regarded series on teaching in higher ed from West Virginia University Press,” with specific reference to series authors Chavella Pittman and Cyndi Kernahan, and a link to Jessamyn Neuhaus’s forthcoming collection Picture a Professor.
In other higher education news, Susan D. Blum’s Ungrading is reviewed in Teaching and Learning Inquiry, where it’s called “a foundational text that challenges us to reflect on the purpose of grading.” And Aeron Haynie and Stephanie Spong, authors of Teaching Matters, appear on the Tea for Teaching podcast.
A review for Appalachian Journal calls Storytelling in Queer Appalachia “a must-read for LGBTQIA+ activists,” referring to WVU Press as “a leader in academic publishing on Appalachian politics and identity.”
Also reviewed in Appalachian Journal is I’m Afraid of That Water, which is praised as “a timely installment in the environmental disaster literature that emphasizes the importance of community action.”
Stacey Balkan’s Rogues in the Postcolony gets its first published review in South Asian Review, where it’s called “an important contribution to contemporary literary studies.”
And Communication Booknotes Quarterly reviews Clary Carey’s The News Untold, finding that it “offers value to any scholar who is interested in how news media frame difficult issues.”
Don’t miss WVU Press staff in the news! Acquisitions editor and marketing manager Sarah Munroe appears on Louisville’s Perks of Being a Book Lover podcast, and director Derek Krissoff writes about university-press publishing in Poets & Writers.