Appalachian Studies

English Lit
Poems
By Bernard Clay

Affrilachian Poet Bernard Clay narrates his West-Side Louisville upbringing and the complexities of Black Appalachian identity in this debut collection of poems compiled from more than twenty years of work.

Ailing in Place
Environmental Inequities and Health Disparities in Appalachia
By Michele Morrone

Ailing in Place examines environmental conditions in Appalachia and explores the relationship between those conditions and certain health outcomes that are often incorrectly ascribed to poor individual choices.

Black Box
Poems
By Frank X Walker

In this collection of African American and Appalachian poetry, Frank X Walker continues the brilliant autobiographical journey of Affrilachia, his groundbreaking first volume of poems.

Affrilachia
Poems
By Frank X Walker

This groundbreaking work of Black Appalachian poetry portrays award-winning poet Frank X Walker’s journey growing up “Affrilachian” in rural Kentucky.

Affrilachia
Poems
By Frank X Walker

This groundbreaking work of Black Appalachian poetry portrays award-winning poet Frank X Walker’s journey growing up “Affrilachian” in rural Kentucky.

Black Box
Poems
By Frank X Walker

In this collection of African American and Appalachian poetry, Frank X Walker continues the brilliant autobiographical journey of Affrilachia, his groundbreaking first volume of poems.

Ailing in Place
Environmental Inequities and Health Disparities in Appalachia
By Michele Morrone

Ailing in Place examines environmental conditions in Appalachia and explores the relationship between those conditions and certain health outcomes that are often incorrectly ascribed to poor individual choices.

The Food We Eat, the Stories We Tell
Contemporary Appalachian Tables
Edited by Elizabeth S. D. Engelhardt and Lora E. Smith
· Afterword by Ronni Lundy

Blue ridge tacos, kimchi with soup beans and cornbread, family stories hiding in cookbook marginalia, African American mountain gardens—this wide-ranging anthology considers all these and more. Diverse contributors show us that contemporary Appalachian tables offer new ways into understanding past, present, and future American food practices.

Enchanted Ground
The Spirit Room of Jonathan Koons
By Sharon Hatfield

In a fascinating work of religious history and cultural inquiry, Hatfield brings to life the true story of a nineteenth-century farmer-spiritualist, Jonathan Koons, whom thousands traveled to Ohio to see. As heirs to the second Great Awakening, he and his followers were part of a larger, uniquely American moment that still marks the culture today.

Gone Dollywood
Dolly Parton’s Mountain Dream
By Graham Hoppe

Country music superstar Dolly Parton’s Dollywood is a 150-acre fantasyland that hosts three million people a year. What does it tell us about the modern South, and in turn what does that tell us about America as a whole? Hoppe blends tourism, public history, and personal reflection into an unforgettable interrogation of Southern American identity.

Maggie Boylan
By Michael Henson

Set in rural America amid an epidemic of opiate abuse, this collection of stories tells of a woman’s search for her own peculiar kind of redemption. Addict, thief, and liar, Maggie Boylan is queen of profanity, a hungry trickster. But she is also a woman of deep compassion and strength. Her journey is by turns frightening, funny, and deeply moving.

Fall or Fly
The Strangely Hopeful Story of Foster Care and Adoption in Appalachia
By Wendy Welch

Chaos. Frustration. Compassion. Desperation. Hope. These are the five words that author Wendy Welch says best summarize the state of foster care in the coalfields of Appalachia. Her assessment is based on interviews with more than sixty social workers, parents, and children who have gone through “the system.” The riveting stories in Fall or Fly tell what foster care is like, from the inside out.In

Keeping Heart
A Memoir of Family Struggle, Race, and Medicine
By Otis Trotter
· Introduction by Joe William Trotter Jr.

Organized around the life histories, medical struggles, and recollections of Otis Trotter and his thirteen siblings, Keeping Heart is a personal account of an African American family’s journey north during the second Great Migration.

Women of the Mountain South
Identity, Work, and Activism
Edited by Connie Park Rice and Marie Tedesco

Scholars of southern Appalachia have largely focused their research on men, particularly white men. The essays of Women of the Mountain South debunk the entrenched stereotype of Appalachian women as poor and white, and shine a long-overdue spotlight on women too often neglected in the history of the region.

Every River on Earth
Writing from Appalachian Ohio
Edited by Neil Carpathios
· Foreword by Donald Ray Pollock

Every River on Earth: Writing from Appalachian Ohio includes some of the best regional poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction from forty contemporary authors such as David Baker, Don Bogen, Michelle Burke, Richard Hague, Donald Ray Pollock, and others.

Mountaintop Mining in Appalachia
Understanding Stakeholders and Change in Environmental Conflict
By Susan F. Hirsch and E. Franklin Dukes

Residents of the Appalachian coalfields share a history and heritage, deep connections to the land, and pride in their own resilience. These same residents are also profoundly divided over the practice of mountaintop mining. Looking beyond the slogans and seemingly irreconcilable differences, however, can reveal deeper causes of conflict.