Summary

The Rebel in the Red Jeep follows the personal and professional experiences of Ken Hechler, the West Virginia politician and activist who died in 2016 at the age of 102.

This biography recounts a century of accomplishments, from Hechler’s introduction of innovative teaching methods at major universities, to his work as a speechwriter and researcher for President Harry Truman, and finally to his time representing West Virginia in the United States House of Representatives and as the secretary of state.

In West Virginia, where he resisted mainstream political ideology, Hechler was the principal architect behind the Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act of 1969 and constantly battled big coal, strip mining, and fellow politicians alike. He and his signature red jeep remain a fixture in West Virginia. Since 2004, Hechler has campaigned against mountaintop removal mining. He was arrested for trespassing during a protest in 2009 at the age of 94. 

Contents

Introduction

Acknowledgements

1. Behind the Wrought Iron Gates

2. Big Man on Campus

3. Over There!

4. Princeton’s Professor of Politics

5. The Truman White House

6. The Road to Congress Winds Through West Virginia

7. Rouge Campaigner

8. Your Servant in Congress

9. Congressional Campaigning, Hechler Style

10. Space . . . Where Hechler Didn’t Expect To Go

11. Win Some; Lose Some

12. Marching to Selma

13. Fighting For Miners’ Lives

14. Hechler vs. Big Coal—Round Two

15. Saving the New River

16. Heckling Congress

17. The Interregnum

18. The People’s Office—The First Term

19. The People’s Office—The Rest of the Story

20. Walking With Granny D

21. From Rebel to Hell-raiser

22. Into the Sunset

23. Twilight

Notes

Index

Author

Carter Taylor Seaton is the author of Hippie Homesteaders: Arts, Crafts, Music, and Living on the Land in West Virginia, two novels, and numerous magazine articles. A ceramic sculptor, she previously directed a rural craft cooperative and was a marketing professional for thirty years. She is the recipient of the 2014 West Virginia Library Association’s Literary Merit Award, 2015 Marshall University Distinguished Alumni Award, and the 2016 Governor’s Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Arts.

Reviews

“A superb biography of a West Virginia icon. Carter Seaton has done a wonderful job capturing the essence of Ken Hechler.”
Jean Edward Smith, author of Bush, Eisenhower in War and Peace, and FDR

“Fascinating new insights into the personal and political aspects of the long career of one of the Mountain State’s most intriguing and maverick political leaders.”
Paul Nyden, retired Charleston Gazette labor reporter

Summary

Set within a backdrop of small towns and hard-working communities in middle America, The Whole World at Once is a collection of intense stories about the experience of loss. Pringle weaves together spellbinding tales amidst shadowed and foreboding physical and emotional landscapes where each of the characters is in motion against her surroundings, and each is as likely as the next to be traveling with a ghost. A soldier returns home from multiple tours only to begin planting landmines in the field behind his house; kids chase a ghost story up country roads only to become one themselves; one girl copes with the anniversary of her sister’s disappearance during the agricultural fair, while another girl searches for understanding after seeing the picture of a small boy washed onto a beach.

In language that is at once both stark and rich, we enter the lives of the characters deliberately, in slow scenes—time enough for a bird to sing as a man and a girl, strangers, fall to their knees—that are inevitable yet laced with the unpredictable. Dark, strange beauties, all of the stories in The Whole World at Once follow the lives of people grappling with what it means to live in a world with death.

Contents

Acknowledgments

How the Sun Burns among Hills of Rock and Pebble

The Boy Who Walks

The Boy in the Red Shirt

When the Frost Comes

This Bomb My Heart

The Fish

The Lightning Tree

The Missing Time

The Wandering House 

Reading and Discussion Questions

About the Author

Author

Erin Pringle is the author of The Floating Order. Her work has been selected as a Best American Notable Non-Required Reading, shortlisted for the Charles Pick Fellowship, and a finalist for contests such as the Austin Chronicle Short Story Contest and the Kore Press Short Fiction Award. She was awarded a Washington State Artist Trust Fellowship, which she used to write and revise many of these stories. Learn more at erinpringle.com.

Reviews

"Ms. Pringle casts a somber gaze at the formative traumas that beset blue-collar America. In "The Wandering House," a young woman is disfigured in a meth-lab explosion. The subtly disquieting tale "The Boy Who Walks" depicts a child's personality change after he nearly freezes to death while wandering through the snow. "After that day, the boy's different. Like his own ghost thinks he died, though he didn't, but now tags him everywhere he goes." You can feel that Ms. Pringle has labored over her sentences, giving them the strength of tempered steel. She has a knack for the cinematic image as well."
Sam Sacks, Wall Street Journal

“Erin Pringle’s stories leave you no choice. They sing so gorgeously, break your heart so perfectly, that you’re forced to revise your understanding of loss, luck, and love.”
Tom Noyes, author of Come by Here: A Novella and Stories

“Readers willing to immerse themselves in sorrow, and sometimes in narratives that twist and shimmer before taking definite shape, will find reflected in these stories the unsteady path of coming back to life—or not—after loss.”
Kirkus Reviews

“In these restless and relentless fictions, the unstoppable storyteller Erin Pringle is at it again. “It” being the most American of dramas—the endless conflict between mobility and stability. In these patently patient, transparently transparent, overly understated stories, the characters constantly fidget and fret in low frequency worries all the while their vital signs are sighing and simmering. These are pristine and persistent visions of hobble-hearted people going nowhere fast.  Her writing, word after word, will stop you in your tracks, will ease you over the edgiest of edges. Don’t blink!”
Michael Martone, author of Michael Martone and Four for a Quarter

“There’s no writer working today who excites me more than Erin Pringle. Her stories stretch like planks off a cliff, past solid ground, offering breath-stealing views of grief, love, and mystery. I love this collection.”
Owen Egerton, author of The Book of Harold and writer and director of the thriller Follow

“A strikingly original collection. This book is poetic, yet has a deep sense of storytelling.”
Laura Long, author of Out of Peel Tree and editor of Eyes Glowing at the Edge of the Woods: Fiction and Poetry from West Virginia

Summary

The pepperoni roll, a soft bread roll with pepperoni baked in the middle, originated in the coal mining areas of north central West Virginia when Italian immigrants invented a food that could be eaten easily underground. This spicy snack soon found its way out of the mines and into bakeries, bread companies, restaurants, and event venues around the state, often with additional ingredients like cheese, red sauce, or peppers added to this humble food staple. As the pepperoni roll’s reputation moves beyond the borders of West Virginia, this food continues to embody the culinary culture of its home state. It is now found at the center of bake offs, eating contests, festivals, as a gourmet item on local menus, and even on a bill in the state’s legislature. The West Virginia Pepperoni Roll is a comprehensive history of the unofficial state food of West Virginia. With over 100 photographs and countless recipes and recollections, it tells the story of the immigrants, business owners, laborers, and citizens who have developed and devoured this simple yet practical food since its invention.  Learn about upcoming events with Candace Nelson.

Summary

From Ann Margret to Bob Dylan and George Jones to Simon & Garfunkel, Nashville harmonica virtuoso and multi-instrumentalist Charlie McCoy has contributed to some of the most successful recordings of country, pop, and rock music of the last six decades. As the leader of the Hee Haw “Million-Dollar Band,” McCoy spent more than two decades appearing on the television screens of country music fans around the United States. And, as a solo artist, he has entertained audiences across North America, Europe, and Japan and has earned numerous honors as a result.

Fifty Cents and a Box Top: The Creative Life of Nashville Session Musician Charlie McCoy offers rare firsthand insights into life in the recording studio, on the road, and on the small screen as Nashville became a leading center of popular music production in the 1960s and as a young McCoy, a West Virginia native, established himself as one of the most sought-after session musicians in the country. 

Over the course of his nearly six-decade career as a session musician, harmonica virtuoso, and multi-instrumentalist Charlie McCoy has appeared on thousands of country, pop, and rock recordings. A member of the Country Music Hall of Fame, the Musicians Hall of Fame, and the West Virginia Music Hall of Fame, McCoy also led the famous “Million-Dollar Band” on the syndicated country music program Hee Haw for more than two decades.

Contents

Foreword: Travis D. Stimeling

Acknowledgements

1. West Virginia Days

2. Rock and Roll Charlie

3. The Road to Nashville

4. College and the Return to Nashville

5. Music City Opportunities

6. Life in the Studio

7. The Artists

8. The Recording Artist

9. Hee Haw

10. An Artist Overseas

11. The Harmonica and Me

Conclusion

Appendix A: The Nashville Number System

Appendix B: Artist Discography

Notes

Index

Photographs

Author

Over the course of his nearly six-decade career as a session musician, harmonica virtuoso and multi-instrumentalist Charlie McCoy has appeared on thousands of country, pop, and rock recordings. A member of the Country Music Hall of Fame, the Musicians Hall of Fame, and the West Virginia Music Hall of Fame, McCoy also led the famous “Million-Dollar Band” on the syndicated country music program Hee Haw for more than two decades.

Travis D. Stimeling is associate professor of musicology at West Virginia University, where he also directs the WVU Bluegrass and Old-Time Bands. His previous books include Cosmic Cowboys, New Hicks: The Countercultural Sounds of Austin’s Progressive Country Music Scene, The Country Music Reader, and Songwriting in Contemporary West Virginia: Profiles and Reflections, published by WVU Press.

Reviews

"We've been waiting for McCoy to tell us his story and can be grateful that he has now done so in such compelling and entertaining fashion."
No Depression

“One of the first serious, substantive books by a major participant in the Nashville recording scene. McCoy’s recollections and insights offer a new and fascinating perspective on the development and expansion of the country music industry.”
Rich Kienzle, author of The Grand Tour: The Life and Music of George Jones

"Fifty Cents and a Box Top–what a great title–is well worth your time."
Joe Specht, Librarian Emeritus, McMurry University and co-editor of The Roots of Texas Music

Summary

The sixty-three fiction writers and poets within this anthology delve deep into the many senses of place that modern West Virginia, the core of Appalachia, inspires.

Throughout this collection, we see profound wonder, questioning, and conflicts involving family, sexual identity, class, discrimination, environmental beauty and peril, and all the sorts of rebellion, error, contemplation, and contentment that an intrepid soul can devise. These stories and poems, all published within the last fifteen years, are grounded in what it means to live in and identify with a complex place.

With a mix of established writers like Jayne Anne Phillips, Norman Jordan, Ann Pancake, Maggie Anderson, and Denise Giardina and fresh voices like Matthew Neill Null, Ida Stewart, Rajia Hassib, and Scott McClanahan, this collection breaks open new visions of all-American landscapes of the heart. By turns rowdy and contemplative, hilarious and bleak, and lyrical and gritty, it is a collage of extraordinary literary visions.

Contents

Gail Galloway Adams
Maggie Anderson
Pinckney Benedict
Laura Treacy Bentley
Michael Blumenthal
Ace Boggess
Mark Brazaitis
Joy Castro
Jonathan Corcoran
Ed Davis
Mark DeFoe
Cheryl Denise
Andrea Fekete
Denise Giardina
Maggie Glover
Crystal Good
James Harms
Marc Harshman
Rajia Hassib
John Hoppenthaler
Ron Houchin
Norman Jordan
Laura Long
Marie Manilla
Jeff Mann
Mesha Maren
Lee Maynard
Scott McClanahan
John McKernan
Llewellyn McKernan
Irene McKinney
Devon McNamara
Kelly McQuain
Rahul Mehta
Sheryl Monks
Mary B. Moore
Renée K. Nicholson
Val Nieman
Matthew Neill Null
Ann Pancake
Jayne Anne Phillips
Sara Pritchard
Mary Ann Samyn
Elizabeth Savage
Steve Scafidi
Angela Shaw
Kent Shaw
Anita Skeen
Aaron Smith
Ida Stewart
Kevin Stewart
A. E. Stringer
Natalie Sypolt
Glenn Taylor
Vince Trimboli
Jessie van Eerden
Doug Van Gundy
John Van Kirk
Erin Veith
Ryan Walsh
Randi Ward
Meredith Sue Willis
William Woolfitt

Editors

Laura Long is the author of the novel Out of Peel Tree and two poetry collections. She teaches at Lynchburg College in Virginia.

Doug Van Gundy’s poems, essays, and reviews have appeared in the Oxford American, Ecotone, Appalachian Heritage, Poetry Salzburg Review, and elsewhere. He is the author of the poetry collection A Life Above Water, and he teaches writing at West Virginia Wesleyan College.

Reviews

"Editors Long and Van Gundy bring together fiction and poetry to show a region as diverse as the people who make it up. . . .A collage of a region that is greater than the sum of its parts."
Kirkus Reviews

"Beautiful and important."
Silas House, author of Clay’s Quilt, The Coal Tattoo, and Eli the Good

“This book is a literary treasure for West Virginia and the rest of the Appalachian region. Interwoven with prose and poetry, it is a rumination on what it means to be of a mountain place in this day and time. In vivid, fresh language West Virginians explore place, identity, family, and so much more. A rich and important addition to mountain letters, I think this book will be regarded for a long time.”
Crystal Wilkinson, author of The Birds of Opulence, Water Street, and Blackberries, Blackberries

“Never sentimental or clichéd, this essential collection captures the complexity and richness of West Virginia today. Revealing a deep, sometimes uneasy connection to home, these stories and poems carry us into the coalfields and hollers, cities, and small towns across West Virginia, and take surprising turns along the way to illuminate its beauty, darkness, violence, and grace.”
Carter Sickels, author of The Evening Hour

"Representing the rich diversity of West Virginians, these writers offer historical, contemporary, and timeless reflections of life and death in the great mountain state through poignant, at times haunting, poetry and prose."
Theresa L. Burriss, Radford University 

Summary

Ecologists, like other scientists, have for decades debated their role in society. While some have argued that ecologists should participate in environmental politics, others have focused their attention strictly on scientific issues. In Ecologists and Environmental Politics, now updated with a new preface by the author, Stephen Bocking explores this debate by recounting the history of ecology in Great Britain, the United States, and Canada since the 1940s.

Bocking tells this history through four case studies: the origins and early research of the Nature Conservancy in Great Britain; the development of ecology at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee; the work of the Hubbard Brook Ecosystem Study in New Hampshire; and research in fisheries ecology at the University of Toronto. By comparing these case studies, Bocking demonstrates how the places of contemporary science—laboratories, landscapes, and funding agencies—and science’s purposes, as expressed through the political roles of expertise and specific managerial and regulatory responsibilities, have shaped contemporary ecology and its application to pressing environmental problems.

Contents

Coming Soon.

Author

Stephen Bocking is a professor of environmental history and policy in the Trent School of the Environment at Trent University. His other books include Biodiversity in Canada: Ecology, Ideas, and Action, Nature's Experts: Science, Politics, and the Environment, and Ice Blink: Navigating Northern Environmental History.

Reviews

“An important study of the period when ecology was being called upon to solve problems of environmental deterioration, and of the institutional context of scientific research in general.”
Environmental History

Summary

Untapped collects twelve previously unpublished essays that analyze the rise of craft beer from social and cultural perspectives.

In the United States, the United Kingdom, and Western Europe there has been exponential growth in the number of small independent breweries over the past thirty years – a reversal of the corporate consolidation and narrowing of consumer choice that characterized much of the twentieth century. While there are legal and policy components involved in this shift, the contributors to Untapped ask broader questions. How does the growth of craft beer connect to trends like the farm-to-table movement, gentrification, the rise of the “creative class,” and changing attitudes toward both cities and farms? How do craft beers conjure history, place, and authenticity? At perhaps the most fundamental level, how does the rise of craft beer call into being new communities that may challenge or reinscribe hierarchies based on gender, class, and race?

Contents

Foreword 
Ian Malcolm Taplin

Exploring the Cultural Dimensions of the Craft Beer Revolution: Introduction and Overview
Nathaniel G. Chapman, J. Slade Lellock, and Cameron D. Lippard

Part I: Global Political Economy

1. Storytelling and Market Formation: An Exploration of Craft Brewers in the UK
Jennifer Smith Maguire, Jessica Bain, Andrea Davies, and Maria Touri

2. A Pint of Success: How Beer Is Revitalizing Cities and Local Economies in the United Kingdom
Ignazio Cabras

3. The Rationalization of Craft Beer from Medieval Monks to Modern Microbrewers: A Weberian Analysis
Michael A. Elliott

4. Entrepreneurial Leisure and the Microbrew Revolution: The Neoliberal Origins of the Craft Beer Movement
J. Nikol Beckham

Part II: Space and Place

5. Crafting Place: Craft Beer and Authenticity in Jacksonville, Florida
Krista E. Paulsen and Hayley E. Tuller

6. Ethical Brews: New England, Networked Ecologies, and a New Craft Beer Movement
Ellis Jones and Daina Cheyenne Harvey

7. Atmosphere and Activism at the Great British Beer Festival
Thomas Thurnell-Read

8. Neighborhood Change, One Pint at a Time: The Impact of Local Characteristics on Craft Breweries
Jesus Barajas, Geoff Boeing, and Julie Wartell

9. The Spatial Dynamics of Organizational Identity among Craft Brewers
Tünde Cserpes and Paul-Brian McInerney

Part III: Intersecting Identities

10. The Cultural Tensions Between Taste Refinement and Middle-Class Masculinity
Andre F. Maciel

11. You Are What You Drink: Gender Stereotypes and Craft Beer Preferences within the Craft Beer Scene of New York City
Helana Darwin

12. Brewing Boundaries of White/Middle-Class/Maleness: Reflections from Within the Craft Beer Industry
Erik T. Withers

Glossary
List of Contributors
Index

Author

Nathaniel G. Chapman is an assistant professor of sociology in the department of behavioral sciences at Arkansas Tech University. His research focuses on craft beer and the production of culture in the United States. He has also researched racial dynamics at Electronic Dance Music (EDM) festivals, and EDM more broadly. Currently, he is conducting research on gender and consumption in the craft beer industry, and the construction of authenticity in craft brewing.

J. Slade Lellock is a PhD student in the department of sociology at Virginia Tech. His research interests include culture, digital sociology, consumption, taste, and qualitative methodologies. His work generally focuses on the symbolic and expressive realms of culture such as music, art, film, and dress as well as social and symbolic boundaries. Given his interest in the cultural dimensions of digital social life, he has conducted ethnographic fieldwork in multiple online communities.

Cameron D. Lippard is an associate professor of sociology at Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina. His teaching and research interests are in social inequality, focusing on the social problems and racialization Latino immigrants face while living in the American South. Recent publications include two books: Building Inequality: Race, Ethnicity, and Immigration in the Atlanta Construction Industry and Being Brown in Dixie: Race, Ethnicity, and Latino Immigration in the New South. He also has researched the connections between immigrant labor and growing industries in the American South including the construction, meatpacking, and Christmas tree industries.

Reviews

"Untapped speaks to important aspects of beer and food culture. It is well researched and documented and adds to our understanding of a largely understudied field."
Carolyn Keller, Keene State College

"A valuable and teachable book that will appeal to anyone interested in social science perspectives on craft brewing."
Andrew Shears, Mansfield University