Kirkus has the first published review of Kelley Shinn’s “harrowing” The Wounds That Bind Us: “Readers may not want to follow in [Shinn’s] footsteps, but they will never be bored with her as a companion.” The author will be joined by Jaki Shelton Green, North Carolina’s poet laureate, for a launch event on June 1 in Ocracoke, NC.

Neema Avashia’s Another Appalachia is named a finalist for the Weatherford Award in Appalachian studies, joining the long list of recent winners and finalists from WVU Press. Avashia is interviewed in Barrelhouse, and her “stunning” book is recommended alongside William H. Turner’s The Harlan Renaissance in Book Riot‘s piece “Eight Books about Appalachian True Stories.” Avashia will be a featured speaker at the West Virginia Book Festival, as reported in the Charleston Gazette-Mail.

Also appearing in Book Riot is Deesha Philyaw’s “phenomenal” The Secret Lives of Church Ladies, which is included in the feature “The Best Books We Read, January–March, 2023.” Philyaw will appear with Tyriek White at Square Books in Oxford, MS, on May 16.

NPR’s reporting on the movement to “go gradeless” quotes Susan D. Blum, and mentions her book with WVU Press, Ungrading: Why Rating Students Undermines Learning (and What to Do Instead). Also participating in coverage of the ungrading movement is WVU Press author Joshua Eyler, who’s quoted in Inside Higher Ed.

In other higher education news, Kelly Hogan and Viji Sathy, coauthors of Inclusive Teaching, appear in the Chronicle of Higher Education with their essay “How Can ‘Inclusion’ Be a Bad Word?” And Inside Higher Ed quotes current and future WVU Press authors Thomas Tobin, Karen Costa, and Elizabeth Norell in an article on active learning.

Kristine Langley Mahler’s Curing Season is reviewed in the Colorado Review, which finds: “The triumph of Mahler’s interrogation is her willingness to acknowledge herself as a suspect and to accept that the ambiguities of the past are ultimately unsolvable.” Mahler is coauthor, with Juliet Patterson, of a paired book review for the Los Angeles Review.

Bratwurst Haven is named a finalist for the Colorado Book Award, with winners to be announced June 10 in Colorado Springs. Author Rachel King talks with the magazine One Story.

The podcast If Books Could Kill dissects Hillbilly Elegy, including a reference to Appalachian Reckoning. Appalachian Reckoning also appears on public radio station WBAA in West Lafayette, IN, where it’s called “a much-needed, much-appreciated response to decades of too often negative images” of Appalachia.

Scott Mackenzie’s The Fifth Border State is praised as “thoughtfully researched and lucidly argued” in the Civil War Monitor. MacKenzie will appear as part of the Ohio County Public Library’s “Lunch with Books” series on April 25.

Lilith interviews Davon Loeb about The In-Betweens, new from WVU Press. Loeb also talks with the podcast from Debutiful, and his “artful” book is reviewed by the Jewish Book Council.

And Courtney Sender, author of In Other Lifetimes All I’ve Lost Comes Back to Me, writes about Elie Wiesel in the Jewish Review of Books.

Don’t miss Sender’s event at P&T Knitwear in New York—one of several WVU Press author readings around the country scheduled this spring. Keep up with them all on our calendar.