West Virginia University Press

Happy Booktober! Our Spring 2027 catalog is out with five new titles plus an anniversary edition of Neema Avashia’s Another Appalachia! wvupress.com 🖤 Black Space: Appalachian Reunion, Celebration, and Homecoming | Edited by William Isom II A vibrant collection of photography, oral histories, artifacts, and essays, documenting the celebration, fellowship, and resilience of Black Appalachian life. 🦇 The Mothman Chronicles: Investigating the Unseen in America | Troy Rondinone and Jeremy N. Chandler Combining historical research, folklore studies, cultural analysis, photography, and firsthand reporting, this book traces the Mothman’s journey from a regional mystery to a fixture of American popular culture. 🌲 Regenerating the Land: The Weeks Act and the People, Politics, and Policies that Created the Eastern National Forests | Char Miller Over twenty million acres of conservation land are now under federal protection under the 1911 Weeks Act. But their establishment, which allowed the federal government to purchase private land, was anything but simple. Environmental historian Char Miller explores in depth the stark purpose public lands give to the nation. 🛤️ Collected Stories of Scott McClanahan | Scott McClanahan These thirty-three stories, including two new stories in print for the first time, are snapshots from growing up in a small, rural Appalachian town. 💊 More Abundantly: A Novel | Kayla Jean Murphy Ruby Faye, struggling with an unexpected pregnancy and alcoholism, returns to her small Appalachian hometown, where she becomes entangled in a multilevel marketing vitamin wellness scheme and returns to her childhood Pentecostal church. ⛰️ Another Appalachia: Coming Up Queer and Indian in a Mountain Place - Anniversary Editin | Neema Avashia, Foreword by Ed Simon Afterword by Robert Gipe with Neema Avashia An expanded edition of Neema Avashia’s memoir about growing up as the queer, desi daughter of Indian immigrants in West Virginia that has proven itself to be one of the most celebrated and impactful Appalachian origin stories. #wvupress #appalachianlit #booktober #mothman #cryptids #queerlit #blackinappalachia #forestconservation

Black life in Appalachia often gets covered in black-and-white, as a relic from the past; Black Space, forthcoming from WVU Press March 2027, demonstrates how communities are alive and thriving now, illustrating that resiliency through celebration, gathering, and reunion as mechanisms of resistance and continuity. Here’s a special preview of photos from the book—perfectly captured by Holly Rainey, Jessica Tezak, and Jabari Guthrie.

New on our Booktimist blog—an excerpt from Beyond Ourselves: Contemporary Poets on Muriel Rukeyser, edited by Catherine Gander and Stefania Heim. 📖 Link in bio!

Stian Rice’s Elsewhere is out now and available for purchase at wvupress.com. 🍴

On October 14th, author Rouzbeh Yassini will be discussing his book, The Accidental Network, with the Stow, MA Historical Society. The Accidental Network shares the untold story of the invention of the cable modem by the small, struggling tech company LANcity in the early 1990s, illustrating how Yassini overcame a cascade of technical challenges, investment community naysayers, and unnerving business obstacles to create the cable modem technology that has changed the way billions of individuals across the globe now manage their daily lives and commerce. Listen to a recent BBC interview with Yassini: bbc.com/audio/play/w3ct986d

Henry and Priscilla Ireys will be doing a reading of their book The Keep on October 20th with The River House Writer’s Club whose mission is to foster creative writing on all levels. 📖 Club members discuss all genres of writing and meet the third Sunday of each month from 1-3pm. Everyone is welcome—to participate or just listen!

📣 It’s pub day for Judy Sandler’s What Kind of Mother—a memoir that reckons with her son’s descent into severe mental illness. Available at wvupress.com.

On Tuesday, September 8th, WVU Press author Helen Kapstein will be speaking as part of a panel during this year’s Energy@Stanford & SLAC—an annual conference for Stanford graduate and professional school students interested in energy. 🗣️ Link in our bio for further event details and more on Petroforms on our website!

Meghana Mysore’s short story collection Let All Our Ghosts Depart is out now! 🩵 Available on our website as always—wvupress.com.

For the love of football 💛💙 take 50% off two John Antonik titles now through September 15 at wvupressonline.com 🏈 Almost Heaven: How Bobby Bowden's Ten Years at West Virginia University Helped Him Become One of the Winningest Coaches in College Football History 🏈 The Backyard Brawl: Stories from One of the Weirdest, Wildest, Longest Running and Most Intense Rivalries in College Football History #WVUFootball

We spoke with Mark Paris—dean of WVU Libraries and Press—about his rural upbringing, what drew him to WVU, what he’s reading right now, and so much more. 🔷🔸 Full interview on Booktimist at the link in bio! 🔗

Author Rachel Weaver is in a recent episode of the ICU Podcast where she touches on her memoir Dizzy—link in bio!

Assistant professor and WVU Press author Sarah Morris was interviewed by CBS News Sunday Morning correspondent Conor Knighton about the local and global impact of "Take Me Home, Country Roads." 🎸🎶 bit.ly/4vWrjhs “We can think about the song as being about any place. It names West Virginia, but it doesn’t have to. People take the song and reappropriate it so that it’s about the place that’s home to them. You can change the geographic references, change the lyrics, change location . . . but it doesn’t really change the song and it doesn’t change the meaning.” @wvuLibraries @WVUHumanities @WVUEberly #countryroads #WestVirginia #wvupress

Arthurdale, WV was created during the New Deal by Eleanor Roosevelt, who aspired to create a planned community that modeled an ideal rural life during the Depression. This weekend is the Arthurdale New Deal Heritage Festival! newdealfestival.org/ One of the prime movers behind this festival is WVU Press author Betty Rivard, whose book, New Deal Photographs of West Virginia, 1934–1943 presents images of the state’s northern and southern coalfields; the subsistence homestead projects of Arthurdale, Eleanor, and Tygart Valley; and various communities from Charleston to Clarksburg and Parkersburg to Elkins. With over 150 images by ten FSA photographers, including Walker Evans, Marion Post Wolcott, Arthur Rothstein, and Ben Shahn, this collection is a remarkable record of hardship, hope, endurance, and, above all, community. These photographs provide a glimpse into the everyday lives of West Virginians during the Great Depression and beyond. Fellow WVU Press author @NatalieSypolt is giving a book signing for her short story collection, The Sound of Holding Your Breath, on Saturday, July 11 from 1:00 - 2:30 pm outside the Craft Shop.

We’re thrilled to share the news that Zoe Gadegbeku (Blue Futures, Break Open) and Julija Šukys (Artifact) are 2026 IPPY Award medalists! 🏅

Are you following @BlackAppalachia? blackinappalachia.org/ Black in Appalachia works to raise the history, visibility and contributions of Black communities in the Mountain South & broader Appalachia. #Juneteenth #blackinappalachia #appalachia

$10 paperbacks / $5 ebooks for four pride-friendly WVU Press titles with code PRIDE26 at wvupress.com 🏳️‍🌈 🏺This Way Back by Joanna Eleftheriou 💙 Blue Futures, Break Open by Zoe Gadegbeku 🧑‍🎨 Enclosure Architect by Douglas Milliken ⛰️The Rope Swing by Jonathan Corcoran

We are thrilled to announce our signing of Wes Blake’s narrative nonfiction collection. “Hazelgreen and Other Haunts” is a memoir of place-in-essays about obscure places in Kentucky, Appalachia, impermanence, and more! Wes Blake is the award-winning author of PINEVILLE TRACE (Etchings Press), whose fiction and essays have appeared in Electric Literature, storySouth, Louisiana Literature Journal, among others.