by Mo Daviau
Rachel Weaver’s beautiful and harrowing memoir Dizzy takes the reader on a roller coaster ride through the American medical establishment. Stricken with constant, unexplained dizziness, Weaver pursues every avenue of treatment she can find. Her narrative charts nearly two decades of false starts, misdiagnoses, and worsening symptoms, alongside other aspects of Weaver’s life—her work in the Alaskan wilderness, writing and publishing a novel, and becoming a mother to twins.
by Marguerite Avery and Mo Daviau
West Virginia University Press is thrilled to welcome Meredith McCarroll to our acquisitions team. As co-editor of our bestselling title, Appalachian Reckoning: A Region Responds to Hillbilly Elegy, McCarroll has demonstrated her dedication to and deep understanding of Appalachia as a region and a culture. In her new role, she will be acquiring Appalachian titles for the press, and we cannot think of a better person for the job! To introduce her, we asked Meredith a few questions about her writing, research, and vision for the future of Appalachian Studies.Read More »
Congratulations on officially taking the reins of West Virginia University Press! Tell us a little bit about yourself.
I was born in Morgantown, left with my partner Susan in our twenties and early thirties to acquire education and work experience, and returned in 1996 to live on her family farm just outside Morgantown, where we’ve raised our two kids. Like a lot of West Virginians, I’m attached to this place in a way that’s difficult to explain or understand, and seems to transcend reason.
We are pleased to publish Kristen Gentry’s debut short story collection Mama Said this week. The linked stories in Mama Said are set in Louisville, Kentucky, a city with a rich history steeped in tobacco, bourbon, and gambling, indulgences that can quickly become gripping and destructive vices. Set amid the tail end of the crack epidemic and the rise of the opioid crisis, Mama Said evokes Black family life in all its complexity. Maggie Henriksen from Carmichael’s Bookstore said about the book, “The characters contain a depth not often seen in a collection of stories, and readers are sure to be thinking about their lives and relationships long after finishing the last (tear-jerking!) page.” In this Q&A below, Gentry talks with Holly Mitchell of Vesto PR.
What drew you to short fiction?
I gained an appreciation for short fiction in undergrad creative writing classes where I was introduced to stories by ZZ Packer, Junot Diaz, Jamaica Kincaid. That appreciation grew during my graduate study at Indiana University. I love the way characters in a short story can be sharply drawn and feel known, but the form and its economy (of language, plot, setting) create just enough mystery to leave readers wondering about the characters, the motivation for and effect of their choices, and the world they inhabit long after the story ends.
We are pleased to publish Erik Reece’s latest book Clear Creek: Toward a Natural Philosophy this week. This wide-ranging and boundary-defying work calls us out of our frenzied, digitized world to a slower, more contemplative way of being. Joe Wilkins called Clear Creek, “A wise, rambling book that is equal parts memoir, natural history, and philosophical investigation. . . . Readers of Barry Lopez and Wendell Berry will find much to admire here.” In this Q&A below, Reece talks with Caitlin Solano of Vesto PR.
The book takes place over the course of a year. Did your journals and notebooks come together naturally, or did you have to revise certain aspects?
The journaling down by the creek occurred pretty organically. But though the book takes the form of “a year in the life,” I actually spent ten years writing it! Not continuously, but rather when some observation or idea came to me. So there was time for some pretty extensive revision, editing, shaping.
You’ve written about your religious upbringing and thoughts on Christianity before in your book, An American Gospel. What was different about your approach for writing about it this time?
In American Gospel, I was settling scores, in a way, with family ghosts. Which I don’t really recommend. But I was also working through some mental anguish that I’d carried around for a long time. There’s really none of that in Clear Creek. Though I’m always, in some sense, writing about religion (I guess I’m a God-drunk agnostic, as someone said about Spinoza), I now very much think of Clear Creek as an unroofed church, where I’m a congregation of one.Read More »
In the second installment of our Booktimist series, we hear from collaborators across the world of books.
Penny Pugh is head of research services at the WVU Libraries and a member of WVU Press’s editorial board.
It’s been my pleasure to serve on the WVU Press board for several years and to see it grow and flourish under the leadership of two talented directors. The work of a board member is indeed a pleasure. The board approves all new books before they’re published, and as part of the evaluation members read a portion of the work under consideration as well as a summary and reports from external reviewers. These glimpses into potential new titles are fascinating. After reviewing the titles, members of the board provide additional insights from our various disciplines and vote on acceptance of the title. The board also advises the director on matters of policy and practice and generally guards the reputation of the press.Read More »
In the first installment of a new Booktimist series, we hear from three publishing professionals who help WVU Press’s small staff bring books to West Virginia and the world.
Jeremy Wang-Iverson is president at Vesto PR and Books, based in Barcelona and New York.
I have helped with the publicity for WVU titles for two years now and look forward to promoting the books into 2019. It strikes me that WVU’s publishing program represents the best of university press and scholarly publishing; there are many authors and editors with interesting arguments, research, and ideas whose chief goal and ambition is having their book brought with care into the world. The limited size of WVU’s list means that this can be done for every book. As a publicist, I’m most interested in working with publishers who have been “present in the process,” as Cleveland State University’s Caryl Pagel says, and I’ve found that’s the case with the WVU team, which handles the smallest details slowly and correctly. WVU’s mix of academic titles, alongside regional and literary, is also very appealing, offering a catalog that has something for every reader. That Morgantown, just an hour outside of Pittsburgh, is a source of literary activity can only be positive; we should all encourage and support the cultural output that comes from places away from the coasts and big cities.Read More »
