SummerBooks

05/03/2016

It's here! Start your May off right with a dose of SummerBooks. The new episode features Night Garden by Kentucky writer Carrie Mullins. Check it out! http://summerbooks.podbean.com/e/night-garden-by-carrie-mullins/

03/27/2016

A new episode of SummerBooks has landed! After a visit to the Appalachian Studies Association conference, we discuss the award winning novel Trampoline by the amazing and wonderful Robert Gipe. If you haven't read this fab book yet, you're really missing out. Hear what we have to say and let us know if you agree:

Episode Thirty-nine features Trampoline by Robert Gipe. ...

01/28/2016

Finally, a new episode of Summer Books is here! After a brief hiatus (yes, life and work finally caught up with us), we're back and better than ever! Or, at least as good as we've always been! :-) This time, we feature the incomparable Ann Pancake and her very lovely book Me and My Daddy Listen to Bob Marley. Check it out!

Episode thirty-eight features Me and My Daddy Listen to Bob Marley by Ann Pancake. ...

11/05/2015

What are you waiting for? If you haven't sent in your best poetry, fiction, non-fiction, photography, art work, or thing that is awesome but defies categorizatioin, do it now! The deadline for the Anthology of Appalachian Writers is only 10 days away!

09/29/2015

The new podcast is up! It's the annual Rose Metal Press edition, featuring the winner of this year's Short Short Chapbook Competition, Rosie Forrest. Her book Ghost Box Evolution of Cadillac, Michigan was wonderful. Enjoy!

Episode thirty-seven is our annual Rose Metal Press edition, featuring Rosie Forrest's Ghost box Evolution of Cadillac, Michigan.

09/14/2015

Fellow writers, colleagues, and friends, please forward this email to any interested individuals or groups you may know of. We are currently accepting submissions to the Writers Master Class with Nikki Giovanni.

The event will take place Thursday, October 8, from 3:00 until 4:30, in the Robert C. Byrd Center for Legislative Studies at Shepherd University; see map at http://www.shepherd.edu/. Please submit the attached form, with your submission to [email protected]. From the poetry and prose submissions, writers will be selected for the masterclass.

The audience will be invited to participate, copies of Master Class finalists’ submissions will be provided, and all are asked to share their thoughts as we undertake a conversation about good writing, both fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry. After each writer is introduced, s/he will come to stage left to the podium and introduce the piece to be read. One submission (1-2 page poem, fiction, or creative nonfiction excerpt) will be read. Writers will remain on the stage to answer questions and to respond to Nikki Giovanni, winner of the WV Humanities Council’s Appalachian Heritage Writer’s Award and Shepherd University’s 2015 Writer-in-Residence; to Dr. Sylvia Bailey Shurbutt, Anthology of Appalachian Writers Managing Editor; to Natalie Sypolt, past winner of the WV Fiction Competition, published fiction writer, writing instructor, and anthology editor; or to the audience. After the master class, Ms. Giovanni will remain for a few minutes to sign books and to answer your questions. Again this year, at your request, we will select 6-8 readers, hoping that these and others will submit their work to the Anthology of Appalachian Writers, Nikki Giovanni Volume VIII.


The deadline for submissions for the Master Class with Nikki Giovanni will be September 25, 2015. For more information, contact Dr. S. Bailey Shurbutt at [email protected] or Natalie Sypolt at [email protected]. There is an application form that can't be attached to this post.

The official Web site of Shepherd University, a liberal arts institution located one hour from Washington, D.C., in historic Shepherdstown, West Virginia.

08/21/2015

Also, if you haven't done so already, check out or discussion of Rebecca Makkai's Hundred Year House. It's a really great novel, and Rebecca is a super writer.

Episode thirty-two features The Hundred Year House by Rebecca Makkai. Renee also recommends you read Rebecca Makkai's article on Cheever and Mad Men....

08/21/2015

A new SummerBooks is here! Hooray! This month (a little late due to end of summer craziness) we focus on Mothers, Tell Your Daughters by one of our favorite authors, Bonnie Jo Campbell. First check out the podcast, and then immediately pre-order the book!

Episode thirty-six features Mothers,Tell Your Daughters by Bonnie Jo Campbell. Also, a good link for beer brewed in Michigan....

07/06/2015

Three former SummerBooks authors are feature on The Millions:Most Anticipated. Yay for Matt Bell, Matthew Salesses, and Ron Rash! It's going to be an exciting year in reading!

If you like to read, we’ve got some news for you. The second-half of 2015 is straight-up, stunningly chock-full of amazing books. If someone told you, “Hey, there are new books coming out by Margaret Atwood, Lauren Groff, Elena Ferrante, John Banville, and Jonathan Franzen this year,” you might say,…

07/02/2015

A new podcast has landed! For June (okay we're a day late but whatever) Renee and I discuss the memoir Get Me Through Tomorrow by Mojie Crigler, which deals with Mojie's brother's brain injury. We talk narrative medicine, doctor/patient relationships, golden retrivers, and more. You know you wanna listen. Go ahead and do it:

Episode thirty-five is Get Me Through Tomorrow by Mojie Crigler from University of Nebraska Press....

05/28/2015

A new episode of Summerbooks is finally ready! This month, Renee and I take on Above Us Only Sky, a beautiful book by Michele Young-Stone. Check it out! http://summerbooks.podbean.com/e/above-us-only-sky-by-michele-young-stone/

Episode thirty-four features Above Us Only Sky by Michele Young-Stone. Click here to read Natalie's BookSlut review of the novel....

05/07/2015

Hey all: Don't forget about the West Virginia Writer's Workshop coming up this summer in Morgantown. The line-up looks great. There are also still a few spots available in the high school workshop if you know any interested teens. Please share!

West Virginia University - Department of English