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Kentucky Author Discusses Opioid Crisis in New Novel

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It’s been about 15 years since the opioid epidemic first hit Appalachia, and now, there’s a whole generation of teenagers in West Virginia and Kentucky who have grown up with drug addiction strongly affecting their friends and families. 

Carrie Mullens is a novelist from Eastern Kentucky who returned from college to find that her community had been devastated by the drug epidemic. Mullens spoke with Roxy Todd about her coming-of-age novel based on the frightening realities facing many young Appalachians.   

A federal bill to protect the pensions and health care benefits of thousands of retired miners is one step closer to becoming law and in Pittsburgh, Donald Trump is scheduled to speak to a fracking industry conference the day after one of his top advisers warmed up the conference with dire predictions on what a Clinton presidency would mean for the energy sector.  

West Virginia’s poet Laureate Marc Harshman has another installment of the Poetry Break. Harshman brings us verses from the Appalachian poet Richard Hague