Books on the Bed

This week we visit with Elizabeth Crook in Austin, Texas. 

Elizabeth Crook is the author of six novels: The Raven’s Bride and Promised Lands, The Night Journal, Monday, Monday, The Which Way Tree, and The Madstone. In 2023 Elizabeth received the prestigious Texas Writer Award from the Texas Book Festival and in 2025 the Texas Medal of Arts in Literary Arts and the Texas Institute of Letters' prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award.

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This week we visit with Henry Wise in Staunton, Virginia.

Henry is a graduate of the Virginia Military Institute and the University of Mississippi MFA program. A writer across multiple genres, his poetry has been published in Shenandoah, Radar Poetry, Clackamas, Nixes Mate Review, and elsewhere. His nonfiction and photography have appeared in Southern Cultures. "Holy City" is his first novel.

For more on Henry: henrywise.com

Henry'...

This week we visit with Glenn Taylor in Morgantown, West Virginia.

Glenn Taylor’s fourth novel, "The Songs of Betty Baach" won the 2023 Juniper Prize in Fiction. His first novel, "The Ballad of Trenchmouth Taggart" was a finalist for the 2008 National Book Critics Circle Award. Glenn’s work has appeared in such venues as the Oxford American, The Guardian, Gulf Coast, and Huizache. Born and raised in Huntington, West Virginia, he no...

This week we visit with Ann Pancake in Reedsville, West Virginia. 

Ann Pancake grew up in Summersville and Romney, West Virginia and graduated from WVU with a Bachelor of Arts in English. After teaching English in Japan, American Samoa and Thailand, she earned a Masters degree in English from the University of North Carolina and a doctorate in English Literature from the University of Washington.

Pancake is—publicly and fervently—a...

This week we visit with Meredith McCarroll in Portland, Maine. 

Meredith McCarroll was born and raised in Waynesville, North Carolina. She is the author of “Unwhite: Appalachia, Race, and Film” (2018) and co-editor of “Appalachian Reckoning: A Region Responds to Hillbilly Elegy” (2019). She graduated from Appalachian State University, and later earned a Masters from Simmons Colleg...

This week we visit with Elizabeth Gonzalez James in Sharon, Massachusetts. 

Elizabeth Gonzalez James is a screenwriter and bestselling author of the novels, The Bullet Swallower and Mona at Sea, as well as the chapbook, Five Conversations About Peter Sellers. The Bullet Swallower was named a best book of 2024 by NPR, Esquire, and elsewhere, was a Book of the Month Club pick, and was featured on “The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon” ...

This week we visit with Rachel Beanland in Richmond, Virginia.

Rachel is the author of two novels, The House Is On Fire (Simon & Schuster, 2023) and Florence Adler Swims Forever (Simon & Schuster, 2020).

The House Is On Fire was selected as an Indie Next pick by the American Booksellers Association, a ‘GMA Buzz Pick’ by Good Morning America, a “most anticipated” book by the Washington Post, and one of the best books of 2023...

This week we visit Kristen Gentry in Louisville, Kentucky.

Kristen is the author of Mama Said, longlisted for the 2024 PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Short Story Collection. She received her M.F.A. from Indiana University. Her award-winning fiction has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and appeared in Electric Literature, Crab Orchard Review, and other journals. She is a VONA and Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference alumna, form...

This week we visit Gerry Wilson in Jackson, Mississippi.

A seventh generation Mississippian, Gerry Wilson grew up in the red clay hills of the north that she writes about in her debut novel, THAT PINSON GIRL, released by Regal House Publishing in February 2024. A story, “Tell Me Anything,” appeared in Persimmon Tree in June 2024. Another story, “A Language of Their Own,” was runner-up for The Porch F...

This week we visit Natachee Momaday Gray in Coyote, New Mexico. Natachee is a New Mexican poet and artist whose work focuses on the melding of art and myth, ancestry and nostalgia, food and prayer, glamour, frivolity, and time. A native of Santa Fe, she has many artistic talents as a poet, hand fashioned bookmaker, fiction writer, Chanteuse, and film maker. In her uniquely creative voice, she draws on her Kiowa and Apache heritage ...

This week we visit Mildred Barya in Asheville, NC. Mildred is a native of Kabale, Uganda and the author of four books of poetry: The Animals of My Earth School, Men Love Chocolates But They Don't Say, The Price of Memory: After the Tsunami, and Give Me Room to Move My Feet. She is currently Associate Professor of Creative Writing & World Literature at the University of North Carolina - Asheville. 

For more on Mildred's life an...

This week we visit Jessie van Eerden in Roanoke, VA. Jessie is a native of Preston County, WV and the author of novels "Glorybound", "My Radio Radio", and 'Call It Horses", and portrait essay collection "The Long Weeping". Her new essay collection "Yoke & Feather" is out now, so go forth and read! 

Jessie has taught for over twenty years in college classrooms and adult literacy programs, and she directed the low-residency MFA ...

CHARLES BAXTER is the author of the novels "The Feast of Love" (nominated for the National Book Award), "First Light", "Saul and Patsy", "Shadow Play", "The Soul Thief", and "The Sun Collective", and the story collections "Believers", "Gryphon", "Harmony of the World", "A Relative Stranger", "There’s Something I Want You to Do", and "Through the Safety Net". His stories have appeared in several anthologies, including The Best Ameri...

Jim Minick is the author or editor of eight books, including Without Warning: The Tornado of Udall, Kansas (nonfiction), “The Intimacy of Spoons” (poetry), Fire Is Your Water, (novel), and The Blueberry Years: A Memoir of Farm and Family. Minick’s work has appeared in many publications including The New York Times, Poets & Writers, Oxford American, Orion, Shenandoah, The Sun, Conversations with Wendell Berry, Appalachian Journa...

Glenis Redmond is the First Poet Laureate of Greenville, South Carolina. She is a Kennedy Center Teaching Artist, and a Cave Canem alumni. She has authored six books of poetry: Backbone (Underground Epics, 2000), Under the Sun (Main Street Rag, 2002), and What My Hand Say (Press 53, 2016), Listening Skin (Four Way Books), Three Harriets & Others (Finishing Line Press), and Praise Songs for Dave the Potter, Art by Jonathan Green...

Mandi Fugate Sheffel was born and raised in Red Fox, KY. She owns and operates Read Spotted Newt, an independent bookstore in the coalfields of eastern Kentucky, and is currently the Sycamore Fund Project Coordinator at The Foundation for Appalachian Kentucky. She is the board vice chair of the Appalachian Arts Alliance and a Mountain Association board member. Mandi is a graduate of Eastern Kentucky University. 

Kathryn Savage’s Groundglass: An Essay (Coffee House Press), explores topics of environmental justice and links between pollution and public health. Groundglass was named a best read of the year by the Sydney Morning Herald, a Yale Review Favorite Cultural Artifact of 2022, and was showcased in Orion Magazine, Lit Hub, and selected by EcoLit Books as a Best Environmental Book of 2022.

Recipient of the Aca...

Dr. ZELDA LOCKHART holds a PhD in Expressive Art Therapies, an MA in Literature, and a certificate in writing, directing and editing from the NY Film Academy. Her work as an author and expressive arts consultant and educator centers on the power of story and nature to connect us across barriers and to heal our generations. She is winner of the Lambda Literary Foundation 2024 Jim Duggins Outstanding Mid-career Novelist Prize. Her bo...

Remica Bingham-Risher, a native of Phoenix, Arizona, is an alumna of Old Dominion University and Bennington College. She is a Cave Canem fellow and Affrilachian Poet. Among other journals, her work has been published in the New York Times, the Writer’s Chronicle, New Letters, Callaloo and Essence. She is the author of Conversion (Lotus, 2006) winner of the Naomi Long Madgett Poetry Award, What We Ask of Flesh (Etruscan...