Long before I was a first-generation college student or professor of rhetoric and composition, I was the son of a full-time West Virginia coal miner and part-time boxing coach, Mike “Lo” Snyder. For a short period of time, my father was one of the most respected boxing trainers in the state. For just over 40 years, he was a coal miner. I write about both sides of my father’s masculine ethos in my book 12 Rounds in Lo’s Gym: Boxing and Manhood in Appalachia, which will be published March 1 by WVU Press. It was in my hometown of Cowen, West Virginia, that my perspectives on Appalachian life were shaped by the beauty and brutality of life in coal country – experiences that continue to inform my research and writing on Appalachian culture.

12 Rounds in Lo’s Gym is about my father’s experiences but also – through stories of young fighters from West Virginia – about individual and community strength in the face of globalism’s headwinds. I hope readers will see it as a corrective to narratives that blame those in the region for their troubles.Read More »