"Now, Appalachia"

On the latest episode of Now, Appalachia, Eliot interviews author Amanda Eyre Ward about her latest novel "The Jetsetters." Amanda Eyre Ward is the author of Sleep Toward Heaven, How to Be Lost, Love Stories in This Town, Forgive Me, Close Your Eyes, The Same Sky, The Nearness of You, and The Jetsetters. Her bestselling novels have been featured in People Magazine, The New York Times, and more. Amanda's work has been optioned for film and television and translated into fifteen languages. She lives in Austin, TX and Ouray, CO. Amanda currently writes every morning and spends afternoons with her children.

On the latest episode of Now, Appalachia, Eliot talks to Kentucky author Carter Sickels about his latest novel "The Prettiest Star." Carter is the recipient of the 2013 Lambda Literary Emerging Writer Award, and has been awarded scholarships to Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, VCCA, and the MacDowell Colony. His essays and fiction have appeared in various publications, including Guernica, Bellevue Literary Review, and BuzzFeed, and he is the editor of Untangling the Knot: Queer Voices on Marriage, Relationships & Identity. Carter is Assistant Professor of English at Eastern Kentucky University, where he teaches in the Bluegrass Writers Studio Low-Residency MFA program.

On the latest episode of "Now, Appalachia," Eliot talks to mystery author Jess Montgomery about her latest novel "The Hallows," a sequel to her first novel "The Widows." Jess is is the Literary Life columnist for the Dayton Daily News and former Executive Director of the renowned Antioch Writers’ Workshop in Yellow Springs, Ohio. Based on early chapters of The Hollows, Jess was awarded an Ohio Arts Council individual artist’s grant for literary arts and the John E. Nance Writer-in-Residence at Thurber House in Columbus. She lives in her native state of Ohio.

On the latest episode of "Now, Appalachia," Eliot interviews author Matt Browning. Matt Browning is the author of "Bookstore Explorer: West Virginia," a celebration of the Mountain State's independent bookstores. He discusses the role that independent bookstores have within the cultural fabric of Appalachia and how independent bookstores throughout the country are often the center of the community. He is represented by Stephen Fraser at the Jennifer De Chiara Literary Agency.

On the latest episode of "Now, Appalachia," Eliot interviews thriller author John Vercher. John Vercher is a writer currently living in the Philadelphia area with his wife and two sons. He holds a Bachelor’s in English from the University of Pittsburgh and an MFA in Creative Writing from the Mountainview Master of Fine Arts program. His fiction has appeared on Akashic Books’ Mondays are Murder and Fri-SciFi. and he is a contributing writer for Cognoscenti, the thoughts and opinions page of WBUR Boston.

On the latest episode of Now, Appalachia, Eliot interviews South Carolina short story author Dustin M. Hoffman. Dustin painted houses in Michigan for ten years and is now an assistant professor of English at Winthrop University in South Carolina. His short fiction has appeared in many magazines, including Threepenny Review, Black Warrior Review, Puerto del Sol, Midwestern Gothic, and Cimarron Review, and his story “Building Walls” received a Pushcart Prize special mention.

On this episode of "Now, Appalachia," Eliot interviews author Jordan Farmer. Originally from West Virginia, Jordan received a Ph.D. in English from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. His stories have appeared in the Southwest Review, Southern Humanities Review, The Baltimore Review, Pembroke Magazine, Day One Magazine and many other publications. The Pallbearer, his first novel, is discussed extensively in this interview.

On the latest episode of "Now, Appalachia," Eliot interviews poet January Gill O'Neil. January is the author of the new poetry collection Rewilding, as well as other collections titled Misery Islands and Underlife, published by CavanKerry Press. She is a board of trustees member with the Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) A Cave Canem fellow, January's poems and articles have appeared in the Academy of American Poets' Poem-A-Day series, Garrison Keillor's The Writer's Almanac, American Poetry Review, and others. She is currently the John and Renee Grisham Writer-in-Residence at the University of Mississippi.

On the latest episode of "Now, Appalachia," Eliot interviews Tennessee author Kimberly Collins. She grew up in Matewan, West Virginia and currently lives in Knoxville, Tennessee. She discusses her latest novel, titled "Blood Creek: Mingo Chronicles: Book One." She is working on the second book in the Mingo Chronicles series titled "Mingo Chronicles: The Massacre."

On the latest episode of "Now, Appalachia," Eliot speaks with essayist Randal O'Wain. Randal O'Wain earned his MFA from the University of Iowa’s Nonfiction Writing Program. He is an assistant teaching professor of creative writing at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and serves as a National Endowment of the Arts Writing Fellow at the Beckley Federal Correctional Institution. O’Wain is the author of the essay collection Meander Belt and his work has been published in Oxford American, Hotel Amerika, Crazyhorse, and Guernica Magazine.