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Fayette County Schools
Walker School, Fayette County I’m surrounded by several box feet of newspaper clippings chronicling the past 30 years of the Fayette County School system, leafing through the yellowing history of a...
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“O Beulah Land” in Oxford American
“O Beulah Land,” my wandering longform essay about writer Mary Lee Settle, the women of Cedar Grove, and Appalachian transition, was published in the summer issue of Oxford American: The Southern...
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VICE’s Appalachia Series
Dental care is by far the busiest section of the Remote Area Medical clinic. Photo by Stacy Kranitz. Last year I teamed up with photographer Stacy Kranitz and several other writers from the region to...
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Kentucky Hemp in “Yes!” Magazine
At the birth of any industry, uncertainty abounds. So does opportunity, say Kentuckians like Joe Schroeder of Freedom Seed and Feed, who is among those growing industrial hemp and advocating for...
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“Book of the Dead” Shortlisted for Stack Award
The Stack Awards recognize the best work in independent magazines from all over the world. I was recently short-listed for a Stack Award in Nonfiction for my longform essay, “The Book of the Dead,”...
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Writing Fellowships
Proud to announce that this fall I was awarded two fully-funded writing fellowships for 2017: the MacDowell Colony Fellowship and the Vermont Studio Center‘s Mountain State Fellowship. In the spring,...
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Read “The Book of the Dead”
Above the Hawk’s Nest Dam on the New River. Photo by Lisa Elmaleh. My longform nonfiction piece about the Hawk’s Nest Tunnel Disaster, “The Book of the Dead: In Fayette County, WV, Expanding the...
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Two Writing Fellowships
A writer’s cottage at the MacDowell Colony This year I’ll be spending some of the spring and fall months in New England at two writing residencies. I’m happy to announce that I’m the recipient of a...
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Best American Essays
I’m pleased as punch to announce that “The Book of the Dead“—my essay on the Hawk’s Nest Tunnel Disaster and the poet Muriel Rukeyser from the Fall 2016 issue of Oxford American—will be included in...
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My Latest in CJR
AFTER THE 2016 ELECTION, the calls and emails rolled into West Virginia, as the press scrambled to make sense of a place that hadn’t occupied this much space on the national political stage since John...
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Turning Coal Mines Into Farms
On a surface-mine-turned-farm in Mingo County, West Virginia, former coal miner Wilburn Jude plunks down three objects on the bed of his work truck: a piece of coal, a sponge, and a peach. He’s been...
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WVU Press Re-publishes “The Book of the Dead”
Written in response to the Hawk’s Nest Tunnel disaster of 1931 in Gauley Bridge, West Virginia, The Book of the Dead is an important part of West Virginia’s cultural heritage and a powerful account of...
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New Publisher – Random House!
Big news this month — I sold two nonfiction books to my dream editor, Kate Medina, at Random House. One is a book about the history and legacy of the Battle of Blair Mountain; the other is an essay...
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Taylor Books Reading March 1
Wrapping up a series of readings and events to promote the re-issue of Muriel Rukeyser’s poem collection, The Book of the Dead, by West Virginia University Press. One more chance to catch a reading...
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Politico
My agent shouted out my forthcoming books in Politico Magazine the other day, in a story on how the Trump victory impacted publishing: The turn of political administrations has always brought changes...
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Two Reviews
Proud to share two reviews/essays pertaining to the recent WVU Press reprint of poet Muriel Rukeyser’s The Book of the Dead, to which I wrote the introduction. Los Angeles Review of Books, “I Wake Up...
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Glamour
I wrote a short piece for Glamour magazine’s September issue, published alongside the voices of women in Arizona, Missouri, Pennsylvania, and Florida, speaking about the issues that will decide their...
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The Georgia Review
The writer Jessica Smith graciously reviewed The Book of the Dead—a new edition of Muriel Rukeyser’s famous poem cycle about the Hawk’s Nest Tunnel Disaster–for The Georgia Review: Admirers of Muriel...
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Greensboro Bound
I’m headed to the Greensboro Bound literary festival next week, where the novelist Wiley Cash and myself will talk about contemporary Appalachian voices, the representation and the role of...
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Letter to America
The literary magazine Terrain is preparing to publish an anthology of writings in response to the current national crises—political, environmental, ethical. They’ve been publishing a series of...
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