Andrea Fekete’s first novel Waters Run Wild was originally published in 2010. Even though it garnered rave reviews and the author’s work has been widely anthologized, the book suffered the fate of many independent press titles, and has long been out of print. Fortunately, this powerful novel of a family’s struggles during the West Virginia Mine Wars is back in an enhanced edition that introduces new readers to an outstanding voice and allows those who enjoyed its earlier version to reacquaint themselves with its elegant language and compelling characters. Read the Full Story >>
Book Reviews
The Observer showcases poetry, fiction, romance, thrillers, horror, non-fiction, memoirs and other literature, with a focus on Appalachia, Appalachian authors, and timely themes from around the world.
America’s Opioid Killing Fields
Award-winning journalist Beth Macy’s Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company that Addicted America comes as a timely, in-depth look at America’s opioid crisis that tells the stories of its victims and traces the social and economic roots of the epidemic. Read the Full Story >>
Book Review: In the House of Wilderness
In White’s latest novel, In the House of Wilderness (Swallow Press, 2018), a mercurial drifter known as Wolf dumps a dead body in the river and then sits down to watch “the complicated patterning of water.” Read the Full Story >>
Book Review: Country Dark
If Country Dark as a title is not enough of a harbinger of what’s in store for readers, the novel itself doesn’t take long to introduce us to a gritty rural Kentucky landscape as experienced by Tucker, a young Korean War veteran who’s returning home. Hitchhiking through the countryside and camping in the woods, his brief interlude of peace is interrupted when he sees a woman running along a dirt road. Read the Full Story >>
Rick Taylor: on Cemeteries, Battlefields, and Tragic Lovers
Rick Taylor’s poems can’t be pigeonholed. In his first book, Never Alone in a Cemetery, his words burst out in multiple directions, although the general theme could probably be defined as endings. There are cemeteries, bloody battlefields, suicides, massacres, lovers’ tragic deaths, and musings on aging. But he also looks at life—family, relationships, animals, birds, and even insects. Read the Full Story >>
A Community Conversation with Alan B. Gibson
Local author and entrepreneur, Alan B. Gibson, has a lot going on. He and his partner were recognized for years as the owner/operators of the popular Ridgefield Farm & Orchard located just outside of Shepherdstown—known for its apples, pumpkins, vegetables, Christmas trees, corn maze, and much more. But they sold it, officially, last September (2017), and since then, Gibson has been on a dream-chasing tear, particularly as an author, though he’s quickly making inroads into film, while also continuing to grow a tech startup. Read the Full Story >>
Getting It Right
Appalachia comes and goes as a national conversation topic as pundits discover the region every few years and propose solutions to its problems, real and imagined. Rarely do they paint a picture of people with agency or delve into the subject deeply enough to question their own preconceptions. One recent example is mainstream media coverage of the teachers’ work stoppage in West Virginia, as many commentators seemed surprised that it could happen in so-called “Trump country” and denoted their obliviousness to the state’s history of labor struggles. Read the Full Story >>
Appalachian Must-Reads
Thomas E. Douglass brings Grubb back from literary oblivion in his comprehensive biography Voice of Glory: The Life and Work of Davis Grubb. The Moundsville-born Grubb occupied a distinctive place in American letters primarily during the ‘50s and ‘60s, and in a career that comprised ten novels and numerous short stories, he garnered acclaim only to be forgotten in recent years. Read the Full Story >>
Local Author Finds Success in Unlikely Genre
Elizabeth Watson believes author Elizabeth Chadwick influenced her writing style and was a gateway to her writing in the genre of historical romance, which attributed to her latest release, The Maiden’s Defender. But before writing, she was a clinical research coordinator and obtained her degree in archeology. She currently lives in Hedgesville (WV) with her husband, four sons, a yellow lab, and a cat. Read the Full Story >>
Book Review: The Last Ballad – by Wiley Cash
Wiley Cash’s new novel The Last Ballad falls into an entirely separate category, presenting a multi-layered and lyrical portrayal of the strike and the travails of mill worker Ella May Wiggins. The Last Ballad introduces Wiggins struggling to feed her four children as a single mother in the sole white household of an impoverished African-American settlement known as Stumptown. Read the Full Story >>