In this episode of our Conversations series, Wes Blake and Em J Parsley discuss novellas and more.

Things Mentioned

• Appalachian Literary Arts Festival

Books Mentioned

• Pineville Trace by Wes Blake
• You, From Below by Em Parsley
• Kinfolks by Gurney Norman
• Nothing Gold Can Stay by Ron Rash
• Stories by Breece D’j Pancake
• Deviant Hollers edited by Zane McNeill and Rebecca Scott
• Queer Communion edited by Davis Shoulders
• Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver
• All About Love by bell hooks
• The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones
• The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones
• Flux by Jinwoo Chong
• The Caretaker by Ron Rash
• Returning to Earth by Jim Harrison
• Trigger Warning by Jacinda Townsend
• Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez
• Light Years by James Salter

Guest Info

Wes Blake is the award-winning author of Pineville Trace, a Southern Gothic flash novella (Etchings Press, 2024). His narrative nonfiction collection Hazel Green and Other Southern Haunts, a memoir of place-in-essays, is forthcoming in 2027 from West Virginia University Press. Wes’ debut book won the Etchings Press Novella Prize and was a finalist for the Eric Hoffer Book Award. His fiction and essays have appeared in Electric Literature, storySouth, Louisiana Literature Journal, and Untelling, among others. He is part of the visiting faculty at Eastern Kentucky University’s Bluegrass Writers Studio MFA in Creative Writing Program and lives in Nonesuch, Kentucky with his wife and cats, where they’ve planted 100 trees. Learn more at wesblake.com.

Website | Instagram

Em J Parsley (they/he) is a farmer, environmentalist, and cultivator of oyster mushrooms living in Lexington, Kentucky. They are the author of the novella, You, From Below (Split Lip Press, 2025) and the poetry chapbook, The Anonym Gospels (April Gloaming Publishing, 2024), which won the Apogee Poetry Chapbook Award.  

Website | Instagram

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In this episodes of Read Appalachia, Kendra Winchester talks to Kayla Rae Whitaker about her new novel Returns and Exchanges.

Things Mentioned

• Appalachian Literary Arts Festival

Books Mentioned

• Returns and Exchanges by Kayla Rae Whitaker
• The Animators by Kayla Rae Whitaker
• Fat Swim: Fiction by Emma Copley Eisenberg
• Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke
• Headshot by Rita Bullwinkle
• State Champ by Hilary Plum

Guest Info

Kayla Rae Whitaker is a graduate of the University of Kentucky and New York University. Her first novel, The Animators, was named a best book of the year by Entertainment Weekly, NPR, Kirkus Reviews, and BookPage. She lives in Queens, New York.

Website | Instagram

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Contact
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In Read Appalachia’s brand new series, Read Appalachia features Willie Edward Taylor Carver Jr. and Robert Gipe in conversation.

Things Mentioned

• Appalachian Literary Arts Festival

Books Mentioned

• Gay Poems for Red States by Willie Edward Taylor Carver Jr.
• Tore All to Pieces by Willie Edward Taylor Carver Jr.
• Trampoline by Robert Gipe
• Weedeater by Robert Gipe
• Pop by Robert Gipe
• Cipher by Jeremy Jones
• Country Queers by Rae Garringer
• Worth Burning by Mickie Kennedy
• Many-Storied House by George Ella Lyon
• Safety of Small Things by Jane Hicks
• Dear Mothman by Robin Gow
• But for Fortune by Erin Reid
• If Only the Rain Would Come by Natalie Sypolt
• In the Fields of Fatherless Children by Pamela Steele
• Every Bone a Prayer by Noah Ashley Blooms

Guest Info

Willie Carver Jr. | Website | Instagram

Robert Gipe | Website

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In this season premiere of Read Appalachia, Kendra Winchester talks to Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jayne Anne Phillips about her new memoir Small Town Girls.

Things Mentioned

• Appalachian Literary Arts Festival

Books Mentioned

• Small Town Girls by Jayne Anne Phillips
• Night Watch by Jayne Anne Phillips
• Black Tickets by Jayne Anne Phillips
• The Dollmaker by Harriette Arnow
• A Death in the Family by James Agee
• They Came Like Swallows by William Maxwell
• Dubliners by James Joyce
• The Stories of Breece d'j Pancake by Breece d'j Pancake

Jayne Anne Phillips is the author of Black Tickets, Machine Dreams, Fast Lanes, Shelter, MotherKind, Lark and Termite, Quiet Dell, and Night Watch, which was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 2024. Her work has been a finalist once for the National Book Award and twice for the National Book Critics Circle Award. The recipient of Guggenheim, National Endowment for the Arts, Howard, Bunting, and Rockefeller Foundation Fellowships, she is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She lives in Boston and New York.

Website | Instagram

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Kendra Winchester talks to Silas House, the former Poet Laureate of Kentucky.

Things Mentioned

• Read Appalachia Newsletter

Books Mentioned

• Dead Man Blues by S.D. House
• All These Ghosts by Silas House
• Lark Ascending by Silas House
• Southernmost by Silas House
• The Coal Tattoo by Silas House
• Clay’s Quilt by Silas House
• A Parchment of Leaves by Silas House
• The Crow Trap by Ann Cleeves
• Raven Black by Ann Cleeves
• A Place Called Winter by Patrick Gale
• Whale Fall by Elizabeth O’Connor
• The Hounding by Xenobe Purvis 
• Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak 

Guest Info

Silas House | Website | Instagram

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You can support Read Appalachia by heading over to our merch store, tipping us over on Ko-fi, or by sharing the podcast with a friend! For more ways to support the show, head over to our Support page.

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Contact
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In the latest installment of our minisode series, Poetry Corner,  Kendra Winchester is joined by upfromsumdirt.

Things Mentioned

• Read Appalachia Newsletter

Books Mentioned

• The Second Stop Is Jupiter: Poems by upfromsumdirt
• The Shoes of the Fisherman's Wife by upfromsumdirt
• Black Leopard, Red Wolf by Marlon James
• None But the Righteous by Chantal James
• The Street of Crocodiles and Other Stories by Bruno Schulz
• The Dispossessed by Ursula K. LeGuin
• The Hearing Trumpet by Leonora Carrington
• African Myths of Origin edited by Stephen Belcher
• Unravel: Poems by Tolu Oloruntoba

Guest Info

upfromsumdirt, aka Ronald W. Davis, is an autodidactic poet, visual artist, and designer from Louisville, Kentucky. He is the illustrator of A Is for Affrilachia and the NAACP Image Award–winning Perfect Black. He is the author of many chapbooks and the full-length collections The Second Stop Is Jupiter: Poems, To Emit Teal, and Deifying a Total Darkness.

Website | Instagram | Bluesky

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In the latest installment of our minisode series, Poetry Corner,  Kendra Winchester is joined by Denton Loving.

Things Mentioned

• Read Appalachia Newsletter

Books Mentioned

• Tamp by Denton Loving
• Feller by Denton loving
• Nameless As the Minnows by Connie Jordan Green
• Lullaby For the Grieving by Ashley M. Jones
• Peasant by Annie Woodford
• Pineville Trace by Wes Blake
• The Art of Lost Souls by Melanie K. Hutsell
• Cipher: Decoding by Ancestor’s Scandalous Secret Diaries by Jeremy B. Jones

Guest Info

Denton Loving is the author of three poetry collections: Feller, Crimes Against Birds, and Tamp which was a finalist for the Weatherford Award and received the inaugural Tennessee Book Award for Poetry. He is a co-founder and editor at EastOver Press and its literary journal Cutleaf. His fiction, poetry, essays and reviews have appeared in numerous publications including The Kenyon Review, Iron Horse Literary Review and Ecotone. 

Website | Instagram

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You can support Read Appalachia by heading over to our merch store, tipping us over on Ko-fi, or by sharing the podcast with a friend! For more ways to support the show, head over to our Support page.

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Contact
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Kendra Winchester talks to Noah Soltau, the Managing Editor of The Red Branch Review.

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Website | Instagram

Things Mentioned

• Read Appalachia Newsletter

Books Mentioned

• Deaf Republic by Ilya Kaminsky
• Frank Sonnets by Diane Seuss
• Algo Speak by Adam Aleksic
• Of Fathers and Gods by Jim Roberts

Guest Info

Noah Soltau is managing editor of The Red Branch Review. His debut collection of poetry, Titanfall, is forthcoming from Madville Publishing. His most recent work appears in Harbor Review, storySouth, and elsewhere. He lives and works in East Tennessee.

Instagram

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You can support Read Appalachia by heading over to our merch store, tipping us over on Ko-fi, or by sharing the podcast with a friend! For more ways to support the show, head over to our Support page.

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Contact
For feedback or to just say “hi,” you can reach us at readappalachia[at]gmail.com


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Kendra Winchester talks to Mandi Fugate Sheffel, the author of The Nature of Pain.

Things Mentioned

• Read Appalachia Newsletter

Books Mentioned

• The Nature of Pain by Mandi Fugate Sheffel
• Peasant by Annie Woodford
• Dead Man’s Blues by S.D. House
• All These Ghosts by Silas House
• Cipher by Jeremy B. Jones
• Sleepovers by Ashleigh Bryant Phillips
• That Which Binds Us by Cathy Rigg

Guest Info

Mandi Fugate Sheffel was born and raised in Redfox, Kentucky. She is the owner of the Read Spotted Newt, an independent bookstore in Hazard, Kentucky, and has been involved with the Foundation for Appalachian Kentucky and the Appalachian Arts Alliance, among other organizations. Her personal essays and opinion pieces can be found in Still: The Journal, Appalachian Journal, The Lexington Herald-Leader, and The Courier Journal.

Website | Instagram | Read Spotted Newt | Read Spotted Newt Instagram

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You can support Read Appalachia by heading over to our merch store, tipping us over on Ko-fi, or by sharing the podcast with a friend! For more ways to support the show, head over to our Support page.

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Contact
For feedback or to just say “hi,” you can reach us at readappalachia[at]gmail.com


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Kendra Winchester talks to Davis Shoulders, the editor of Queer Communion: Religion in Appalachia.

Things Mentioned

• Read Appalachia Newsletter
• Appalachian Futures Info
• Fundraiser for Reclamation: Queering Appalachia’s Visual Memory Book

Books Mentioned

• Queer Communion: Religion in Appalachia edited by Davis Shoulders
• The Secret Lives of Church Ladies by Deesha Philyaw
• The Fox and I by Catherine Raven
• The Salt Stones by Helen Whybrow
• Motherhood by Sheila Heti
• The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro 

Guest Info

Davis Shoulders is an indie bookseller from East Tennessee. They have previously worked at Politics & Prose in Washington, DC, and Union Ave Books in Knoxville, and they helped open Atlas Books in Johnson City, Tennessee. Their current bookselling residence is Read Spotted Newt in Hazard, Kentucky.

Instagram | Book Tour Info

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You can support Read Appalachia by heading over to our merch store, tipping us over on Ko-fi, or by sharing the podcast with a friend! For more ways to support the show, head over to our Support page.

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Contact
For feedback or to just say “hi,” you can reach us at readappalachia[at]gmail.com


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