"Now, Appalachia"

Authors on the Air Global Radio Network host and thriller writer Eliot Parker interviews Cat Pleska. Cat is an author, editor, educator, publisher, and storyteller. She often leads writing workshops in the community and is an essayist for West Virginia Public Radio, and a book reviewer for West Virginia University Press. She edited the anthology Fed from the Blade: Tales and Poems from the Mountains (Woodland Press 2012), and her first book, Riding on Comets: a Memoir was published by West Virginia University Press May 2015. Riding on Comets was short listed for the 2015 book of the year in the memoir category by Foreword Magazine. Cat is the 2016 recipient of the Governor’s Arts Award for Support of the Arts. Her cookbook, One Foot in the Gravy—Hooked on the Sauce: Recipes You’ll Relish was published by Mountain State Press in April 2017. She is working on a novel, a collection of short stories, and a collection of essays. She holds an MFA from Goucher College in Baltimore (2004), as well as an MA in Humanities (1998) and a BA in English (writing emphasis, 1994). She teaches in the graduate humanities program for Marshall University and is a full time Instructor for Arizona State University’s Master of Liberal Studies Program. 

Authors on the Air Global Radio Network host Eliot Parker welcomes author Sheryl Monks. Sheryl Monks is the author of Monsters in Appalachia, published by Vandalia Press, the creative imprint of West Virginia University Press. She holds an MFA in fiction from Queens University of Charlotte. Her stories have appeared in Rkvry Quarterly, Electric Literature, The Butter, The Greensboro Review, storySouth, Regarding Arts and Letters, Night Train, and other journals, and in the anthologies Surreal South and Eyes Glowing at the Edge of the Woods: Contemporary West Virginia Fiction and Poetry, among others. Monsters in Appalachia is a Weatherford Award finalist, a Southern Book Prize finalist, and a Foreword Indies Book finalist. Sheryl lives in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, where she works for a peer-reviewed medical journal. ​​ 

Authors on the Air Global Radio Network host and thriller author Eliot Parker interviews Jessica Strawser. Jessica is the editorial director of Writer’s Digest magazine and the author of Almost Missed You and Not That I Could Tell. She has written for The New York Times Modern Love, Publishers Weekly and other fine venues, and lives with her husband and two children in Cincinnati. 

Authors on the Air Global Radio Network host and thriller author Eliot Parker interviews Mesha Maren. Mesha Maren's debut novel, Sugar Run, is forthcoming from Algonquin Books in January 2019. Her short stories and essays have appeared in Tin House, Oxford American, Crazyhorse, Southern Cultures, Hobart, Forty Stories: New Writing from Harper Perennial, and elsewhere. She is the recipient of the 2015 Thomas Wolfe Fiction Prize, a 2014 Elizabeth George Foundation grant, an Appalachian Writing Fellowship from Lincoln Memorial University, and fellowships from the MacDowell Colony and the Ucross Foundation. She is the 2018-2019 Kenan Visiting Writer at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and also serves as a National Endowment of the Arts Writing Fellow at the Beckley Federal Correctional Institution. 

Authors on the Air Global Radio Network host and thriller author Eliot Parker interviews West Virginia author Heather Gilbert. She is an ECPA Christy award finalist and Grace award winner, writes contemporary mysteries and Viking historicals. Her novels feature small towns, family relationships, and women who aren't afraid to protect those they love. Publisher's Weekly gave Heather's Viking historical Forest Child a starred review, saying it is "an engaging story depicting timeless human struggles with faith, love, loyalty, and leadership." 

Authors on the Air Global Radio Network host and thriller author Eliot Parker interviews author Nick White. Nick White is the author of the novel How to Survive a Summer and the short story collection Sweet and Low. His fiction and essays have appeared in The Kenyon Review, Guernica, The Literary Review, LitHub, and elsewhere. He teaches creative writing at The Ohio State University.