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To Belong Here: A New Generation of Queer, Trans, and
Two-Spirit Appalachian Writers
Edited by Rae Garringer, with foreword by Carter Sickels
Keep Pride Month rolling into July and beyond with this collection of nineteen essays, poems, and stories by Appalachian-based writers, a segment of the LGBTQ+ population not often heard from, upending the common myth of Appalachia as monolithically white, straight, and MAGA. This grew out of the Appalachian Writers Workshop and the Country Queers podcast for queer people surviving and thriving in rural America, and found a home with the University Press of Kentucky.
Fever Beach
Carl Hiaasen
Ron Charles of The Washington Post writes: “Hiaasen is working in a grand tradition that stretches back to Mikhail Bulgakov satirizing Stalinism and Charlie Chaplin mocking Hitler. At his best, he can pack a paragraph with so many little parodic bangs that it feels like a fireworks display when the explosions come so fast you stop saying “Ahhh” and just stand in slack-jawed bedazzlement… While white-shoe lawyers, university presidents and media moguls cower before the MAGA assaults on American democracy and decency, this mischievous 72-year-old writer is fighting back with every political gag and sex joke he can get his hands on.”
If You Love It, Let It Kill You
Hannah Pittard
A LitHub Most Anticipated Book of the Year, this promises to be an irreverent look at a woman grappling with modern life in Lexington, Kentucky. Hana learns an unflattering depiction of herself will soon appear in her ex-husband’s debut novel. “A remarkably ridiculous midlife crisis ensues, featuring a talking cat, a visit to the dean’s office, a shadowy figure from the past, a Greek chorus of indignant students whose primary complaints concern Hana’s autofictional narrative, and a game called Dead Body.” –Macmillan Publishers
My Mother Cursed My Name
Anamely Salgado Reyes
Fans of magical realism and Like Water for Chocolate will delight in this multigenerational saga of three women from different generations of the Olivares family in a small border town aptly named Grace, Texas. The three have come together for a funeral—and one of them is the deceased herself, still vying to influence her family’s lives from beyond the grave. Reyes’s impressive debut novel delves into grief, food, generational trauma, magic, and of course familial love.
Poets and Dreamers: My Life in Americana Music
Tamara Saviano
From Texas A&M University Press: “Part memoir, part oral history, Poets and Dreamers: My Life in Americana Music traces Tamara Saviano’s remarkable journey through the rise of the Americana music genre. Spanning more than three decades, Saviano unfolds the story of Americana—country music’s bohemian cousin—from her unique perspectives as a journalist, historian, Grammy-winning music producer, filmmaker, and artist emissary.”
Lay Your Armor Down
Michael Farris Smith
Scott Blackburn, author of It Dies With You, describes this Oxford, Mississippi writer’s new book like so: “Lay Your Armor Down is a prophetic, propulsive tale that is sure to leave its lasting mark on the Southern gothic canon. Smith is at his best in these pages, his signature prose rendering a work as dark and beautiful as a summer storm. This novel is a masterclass in storytelling, with characters that are uniquely unforgettable, and an ending that’s well worth the journey… It charts the course of several broken people, all outrunning danger’s dark fingers, and all brought together for one last chance at redemption.”