Appalachian Review

In Remembrance of bell hooks: On Being Human

Spring 2022 ♦

I met bell hooks in October 2014. At the time, I still held an image of her as an iconic writer rather than an enfleshed Black woman full of desire and deep feeling. She was, after all, one of the most consequential feminist writers and intellectuals of our time. And like…

Erin Keane talks ‘Runaway’

Silas House ♦

Fall 2022 ♦

Interview

At a greasy spoon in Louisville, Erin Keane dissects a phrase she holds in particular contempt: It was a different time. She spits it out over the clatter of dishes and shouted orders coming from the nearby kitchen, rolling her expressive eyes for good measure. The weaselly wording, she believes,…

Two Essays on Best American Essays 2022 Notables List

Silas House ♦

Blog ♦

Best American Essays

Congratulations to Martha Grace Duncan and Jake Maynard, whose essays “Cattle Upon a Thousand Hills” and “This American Fife” were named as Notable in Best American Essays 2022. The essays were selected by series editor Alexander Chee and series editor Robert Atwan. We’re also thrilled that essays by Appalachian Review contributors Silas House,…

2021 Denny C. Plattner Awards

Silas House ♦

Blog ♦

Plattner Awards

We are proud to announce the winners of the annual Denny C. Plattner Awards, which were established in 1995 by Kenneth and Elissa Plattner to honor their late son and his love of writing. The awards are given to the finest pieces of fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry that appeared…

In Conversation: Neema Avashia

Skylar Bensheimer ♦

Summer 2022 ♦

Interview

“In truth, I’ve always felt uneasy in my relationship to the word ‘Appalachian’… do you not count if you are Brown, Indian, the child of immigrants who moved to a place out of necessity again thirty years later, when work disappeared?” Neema Avashia writes in Another Appalachia: Coming Up Queer and Indian…

Grasping at Grace

Quincy Gray McMichael ♦

Summer 2022 ♦

Creative Nonfiction

When I open the door of my father’s truck, all I smell is hot banana. His Ford stays ripe with carpentry odors—sweat, sawdust—but he always has at least one brown banana on the dash, roasting in the Maine sun. I hold my breath as I scoot into the middle of the…

On Naming and Lessons Learned

Qrescent Mali Mason ♦

Spring 2022 ♦

bell hooks Tribute, Creative Nonfiction

I have been thinking a lot about grief and love, having recently lost three of my most beloved and influential Black women elders, beginning with bell in December of 2021 and then my paternal grandmother, Gloria Evadne Atherton on March 18, 2022, and four days later, my paternal aunt, my Auntie…

In Conversation: Jocelyn Nicole Johnson & Monic Ductan

Monic Ductan ♦

Spring 2022 ♦

Interview

Timely: that’s but one word to describe Jocelyn Nicole Johnson’s electric debut My Monticello, a collection of stories and a novella that bears witness to the white supremacy of both the past and present. Set in and around Charlottesville, Virginia, where Johnson lives and writes, the book centers on Black…

Blue Ridge Bobby

Caroline McTeer ♦

Spring 2022 ♦

Creative Nonfiction

The door opened and Johnson Gibbs stood solidly in it. His blue eyes were very bright. There was full sunlight now and it made a burning glare on the snow. Against this harsh light Johnson’s figure loomed black, black as velvet, blackly burning, and his voice sounded deep and hollow:…

Birds in War

Elaine Neil Orr ♦

Spring 2022 ♦

Creative Nonfiction

With all of the bombing and explosions and smoke everywhere, the impact of all of that on birds and other wildlife can be so significant that it is hard to speculate on the extent . . . [I]t is like a web, like breaking glass and watching it shatter out…