Summary

This collection, the first of its kind, gathers original and previously published fiction and poetry from lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer authors from Appalachia. Like much Appalachian literature, these works are pervaded with an attachment to family and the mountain landscape, yet balancing queer and Appalachian identities is an undertaking fraught with conflict. This collection confronts the problematic and complex intersections of place, family, sexuality, gender, and religion with which LGBTQ Appalachians often grapple.

With works by established writers such as Dorothy Allison, Silas House, Ann Pancake, Fenton Johnson, and Nickole Brown and emerging writers such as Savannah Sipple, Rahul Mehta, Mesha Maren, and Jonathan Corcoran, this collection celebrates a literary canon made up of writers who give voice to what it means to be Appalachian and LGBTQ.

Contents

Introduction   

Editor’s Notes

Dorothy Allison          

            Roberts Gas & Dairy   

            Careful

            Butter 

            Domestic Life 

Lisa Alther      

            Swan Song     

Maggie Anderson       

            Anything You Want, You Got It         

            Biography       

            Cleaning the Guns     

            In Real Life     

            My Father and Ezra Pound     

Nickole Brown

            My Book, in Birds      

            To My Grandmother’s Ghost,

            An Invitation for My Grandmother   

            Ten Questions You’re Afraid to Ask, Answered        

Jonathan Corcoran     

            The Rope Swing         

doris diosa davenport           

            verb my noun: a poem cycle 

            After the Villagers Go Home: An Allegory     

            Halloween 2011         

            Halloween 2017         

            for Cheryl D my first lover, 41 years later     

            Three days after the 2017 Solar Eclipse        

            Sept. 1  Invocation     

            a conversation with an old friend     

            Upon realizing

            "The Black Atlantic"   

Victor Depta   

            The Desmodontidae  

Silas House    

            How To Be Beautiful  

Fenton Johnson          

            Bad Habits     

Charles Lloyd  

            Wonders        

Jeff Mann       

            Not for Long   

            Training the Enemy    

            Yellow-eye Beans      

            The Gay Redneck Devours Draper Mercantile          

            Three Crosses

            Homecoming 

Mesha Maren

            Among

Kelly McQuain

            Scrape the Velvet from Your Antlers 

            Brave  

            Vampirella     

            Monkey Orchid          

            Alien Boy        

            Mercy 

            Ritual 

Rahul Mehta  

            A Better Life               

Ann Pancake  

            Ricochet         

Carter Sickels 

            Saving

Savannah Sipple        

            WWJD / about love    

            WWJD / about letting go       

            Jesus and I Went to the Wal-Mart    

            Catfisting       

            Pork Belly       

            A List of Times I Thought I Was Gay  

            Jesus Signs Me Up For a Dating App  

Anita Skeen    

            Double Valentine       

            How Bodies Fit           

            Need  

            Something You Should Know

            The Clover Tree         

            The Quilt: 25 April 1993         

            While You Sleep         

Aaron Smith   

            Blanket           

            There’s still one story

            Twice 

Julia Watts     

            Handling Dynamite    

Selected Bibliography of Same-Sex Desire in Appalachian Literature

Editors

Jeff Mann is an associate professor of English at Virginia Tech. He has published three poetry chapbooks, five full-length books of poetry, two collections of personal essays, a volume of memoir and poetry, three novellas, six novels, and three collections of short fiction. He is the winner of two Lambda Literary Awards.

Julia Watts is a professor of English at South College and a faculty mentor in Murray State University’s low-residency MFA in writing program. She is the author of over a dozen novels, including the Lambda Literary Award-winning Finding H.F., the Lambda Literary and Golden Crown Literary Society Award finalist The Kind of Girl I Am, and the Lambda Literary Award finalist and Golden Crown Literary Award-winning Secret City. 

Reviews

“A gratifying diversity of multigenerational voices, styles, and attitudes. The theme of loyalty to place paired with queer identity results in marvelous poetry and fiction.”
Felice Picano, author of Justify My Sins

"An immersive exploration of queer life within the confines of a conservative American subculture."
Foreword Reviews

"The lists of accolades, publications, and prestigious positions attributed to these authors are staggering; the people highlighted in these pages are all well-established and often highly awarded, which implies a much broader collection of queer writers from Appalachia than previously imagined. Many of the authors included here are professors in universities dotted along the outskirts of small Appalachian towns, who must inspire legions of nascent queer writers just beginning to experiment with both writing and their own sexuality."
Lambda Literary 

“This collection, through its poetry and prose, maps the queer ecology of Appalachia and the voices that construct themselves in relation to the landscape and the cultural imagination of the place. Each piece in the book unfolds as paradox of both belonging (being from and of a place) and nearly complete alienation.”
Stacey Waite, author of Teaching Queer

“It was a complete pleasure reading this rich collection that explores the gay experience in Appalachia. The urge to flee is strong, but so is the need to return to an at-times brutal terrain that often offers more fists than love.”
Marie Manilla, author of The Patron Saint of Ugly, Shrapnel, and Still Life with Plums