West Virginia University Press

07/25/2025

Author Matthew Ferrence, author of Please Vote For Me, I Hate It Here, published an OpEd in The Observer earlier this month.

He speaks about his campaign and the political illusion: “That’s my biggest point: politics is built on narratives much more than policies, and the GOP has proved to be expert at fashioning an illusion that appeals to many voters in the regions of America that struggle the most.“

Check out the rest at the link in our bio 🔗🔗

07/23/2025

Zoë Gadegbeku presented at the African Book Festival in Berlin this past weekend!

She sat on various panels and read from Blue Futures, Break Open, which was released In March!

While in a panel, she shared “representing something towards what's presumed to be a Western audience, or an audience of white people, to prove your humanity in some way, or to prove that we also have values. I'm not interested in that,” and she explains, “the world that I'm writing in is black. The center is black. Everything. I'm not proving anything to anybody.”

The clip from the panel as well as a short reading Blue Futures, Break Open can be viewed on our Instagram.

Congratulations Zoë!! 🌊🌊

07/21/2025

WVU Press is thrilled to announce our signing of Meghana Mysore’s debut collection of short stories. Mysore is an Indian American writer and a daughter of immigrants. Her poems, stories, and essays have appeared in The Yale Review, The Massachusetts Review, Pleiades, Roxane Gay’s The Audacity, Michigan Quarterly Review, and the anthology A World Out of Reach (Yale University Press). In 2025, her story "Repair Shop" was selected by Marian Crotty as the winner of the Barry Hannah Prize, and in 2024, her flash fiction piece, “In Lamplight You Are Made Whole,” was selected by Maurice Carlos Ruffin for the Wigleaf Top 50 Very Short Fictions.

A 2022-2023 Steinbeck Fellow, and a Tin House and a Bread Loaf Scholar, Mysore has also received recognition from Black Lawrence Press, Autumn House Press, The Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts, The de Groot Foundation, and more. She holds a B.A. in English from Yale and an M.F.A. from Hollins University. In Fall 2025, she will be a visiting fellow at Bucknell University and has previously taught creative writing at Amherst College, The Seven Hills School, and Hollins University. You can find her at www.meghanamysore.com or at a used bookstore somewhere near wildness.

The collection, tentatively entitled “Let All Our Ghosts Depart” is slated for a Fall 2026 release. Author photo by Nima Mysore.

07/18/2025

Happy Friday everyone!

Earlier this year, Appalachian Prison Book Project (APBP) hosted a lovely launch event in conjunction with WVU Press for This Book is Free and Yours to Keep: Notes from the Appalachian Prison Book Project. The party was held at the Aull Center, where APBP houses the books and letters that make the project —the same letters that make the book.

APBP recently posted a lovely article about the event that includes pictures and quotes.

Check it out! We have linked the article in our bio 🔗🔗

07/17/2025

🚨EVENT TONIGHT 🚨

Katy Ryan, a professor in the Department of English, and graduate student Destinee Harper will read from “This Book is Free and Yours to Keep,” a collection of letters and artwork by people in prison that highlights the crucial work done by the Appalachian Prison Book Project (APBP). The nonprofit provides books to incarcerated people in West Virginia, Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio and Maryland.

Book signings will follow the readings.
See you there!

07/17/2025

Only ONE DAY left to !!

Zoë Gadegbeku will be at the African Book Festival in Berlin, Germany! She’ll be participating in multiple events on Sunday:

11am CEST —— IMAGINED COMMUNITIES: Fiction & Environmental Change

12:30pm CEST —— LOVE & VENGEANCE: The Inner Worlds of Women in Relationships

2pm CEST —— BLUE FUTURES, BREAK OPEN

We’ve placed the link for the program and event in our bio 🔗🔗

(graphics from program page)

07/11/2025

Marc Harshman, West Virginia Poet Laureate, shares insights into his poetic roots, his deep connection to the natural world, and the unexpected path to becoming a celebrated writer, teacher, and advocate for the arts. With warmth and humility, he discusses the stories that shaped him, the value of regional identity, and his commitment to keeping his work fresh and true to the rhythms of lived experience.

Check out Booktimist (linked in bio) to read the Q&A 🔗

07/10/2025

Weaving a Fabric of Unity shares the story of the pioneering enterprise that came to be identified as FUNDAEC (the Foundation for the Application and Teaching of Science), highlighting five decades of stories, learning, and insight from key individuals central to shaping its evolution.

In this interview, Dr. Haleh Arbab, one of the authors, shares how the initiative began and the inspiring response the book has received from university professors and students.

Watch the rest of the interview at the link in our bio 🔗🔗

07/08/2025

A timely op-ed from Author Matthew Ferrence

In north-west Pennsylvania, the Maga agenda puts lives and livelihoods at risk

07/08/2025

This week we’re at the University of Maryland in College Park for ASLE - Association for the Study of Literature and Environment. Come to the exhibit area and check out our latest book!🌲🦝🌳🐢🍁🦀🦔🍄🪺🪻🌈🌦️🦡🌎📋📓📚🖋️

07/07/2025

We hope to see some of you at the upcoming ASLE: Association for the Study of Literature and Environment- meeting in College Park, MD. We'll be in the exhibition hall from Tuesday afternoon to Friday afternoon with a great display of our books, including Joanna Allan's Saharan Winds: Energy Systems and Aeolian Imaginaries in Western Sahara, a finalist for the Ecocriticism Book Award. Stop by and see us!

Check the link in our bio for more conference details 🔗🔗

ASLE will be posting updates BlueSky (-us.bsky.social)!