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November 2021 News of the Appalachian Literary Scene

November 2021 News of the Appalachian Literary Scene

Khadijah Queen – pictured above - has been selected as one of four judges for the 2022 PEN Open Book Award. She teaches at Virginia Tech.

Maurice Manning has been selected as one of four judges for the 2022 PEN/JEAN Book Award. He teaches at Transylvania College.

My Monticello by Jocelyn Nicole Johnson will be adapted by Chernin Entertainment for a Netflix film!

The Western North Carolina Historical Association has named five finalist for the 2021 Thomas Wolfe Memorial Award. They are:

Mary Othella Burnette for Lige of the Black Walnut Tree: Growing Up Black in Southern Appalachia

Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle for Even As We Breathe

Wayne Caldwell for Woodsmoke

Matthew Wimberley for All the Great Territories

Vicki Lane for And the Crows Took Their Eyes

The Wife Upstairs by Rachel Hawkins has been named one of six finalists for the Southern Book Prize. Last year’s winner was Carter Sickles for The Prettiest Star.

Needlework by Julia Watts is one of three October books on Lambda Literary’s “Back to School World: Eight Queer Young Adult Books Coming This Fall.”

My Monticello by Jocelyn Nicole Johnson made the New York Times 100 Notable Books of 2021 list.

The Greenville, South Carolina, County Schools Hall of Fame inducted six people into their 2021 Hall of Fame, including Glenis Redmond who they appropriately cited as an “acclaimed poet.”  She graduated from Woodmont High School in 1981.

The November 5th issue of The Week spotlighted two Appalachian books.  Best books . . chosen by Yrsa Daley-Ward included Pilgrim at Tinker Creek (1974) by Annie Dillard. Daley-Ward enthused, “This strange, shifting literary vortex is haunting, brilliant, warm, weird, and so, so delicious. It made a home in my soul.”  Also, of interest . . .in scandals revisited appeared The Taking of Jemima Boone by Matthew Pearl. Quoting reviewers as saying that Pearl “resists oversimplifying a history that has been too often presented as a frontier romance,” and that the author paints, “a fascinating picture of frontier Kentucky.”  The November 12 issue of The Week features Jocelyn Nicole Johnson, an art teacher in the Charlottesville, Virginia, schools, as their “Author of the Week.”