Books Story Archives - Page 2 of 6 - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

Harpers Ferry Author John Michael Cummings Talks Writing

John Michael Cummings is an author in Harpers Ferry. He’s published three novels, two novellas and many short stories. Cummings recently spoke with Bill Lynch about writing and his latest collection of short stories, “The Spirit in My Shoes.”

The following has been lightly edited for clarity.

Lynch: Would you like to start with reading something?

Cummings: Yeah, let me see. Yeah, here is an excerpt. This is kind of a prose-y essay piece. It’s from “Crows and Sparrows.”

In divorce, the gods dropped you from their laps, and the forces of the inevitable and adverse nudge you into the unknown, oblivious to your whimpers. Before you can protest or brace yourself, another source of harm and ruin shoves you into the body of the stranger beside you, so that you yourself become that stranger, first to the world, then to yourself. Alone, you wander into the forest of alienation, where strangers introduce you to the age of self-help, Zen, and yogic self centeredness. Although you strive to attain mental well being, you, just too angry for enlightenment, feel too discontented and rebellious. Or you seek spiritual elation through sex and food, but receive only disillusionment, the return of hunger and another day. It cannot suppress the scorn lacing your mind and will. You cannot unearth your good, kind self. Instead, shame and guilt hammer against the inside of the head. Or consternation vibrates through your ribs tingling up to your fingertips.

That fight of your life is on.

Lynch: Tell me a little about that piece.

Cummings: Well, it’s sharing some of the intense feelings that are personal and were lived by me, experienced by me, and that are in some way, trapped inside me. But they are singular to me and alone with me and remote with me. So by putting them on the page, it’s an exercise of some kind of statement. I don’t know that it cleanses it, or makes it feel better. It just makes a petition of it. It declares it. It acknowledges it. It does some kind of craft through writing. It maybe embellishes it for the sake of art, but it puts energy into it. Maybe writing is therapy.

Lynch: What’s the attraction to writing shorter forms like short stories?

Cummings: It occurred to me that we remember by sharp details. When we think about our childhood, there’s sharp details, maybe the color of a coffee cup, or a mustard jar, or the type of table or a pattern.

And those memories are very vivid to you and to your siblings. And you might connect with your siblings returning years later. You both remember that particular detail, or the smell or something about the mood of the room or, or you know, how the air always blew across the yard in an icy way –constantly.

I’m drawn to those highly detailed up-close snapshots of our lives. And the things that we don’t talk about so much. We don’t have time to or we don’t dare talk about them, even though there’s nothing bothersome about them. It’s just an investigation. So, language gives me time to investigate that moment.

Lynch: When did you start writing?

Cummings: I wrote love letters in high school.

I wrote 20 page love letters. I’m not kidding you – every night, in beautiful Jeffersonian cursive. And what did I write? Probably, the worst poetry ever. I mean, probably just saccharin.

That actually was my beginning in writing, but I didn’t apply it in school. It was my sentiment toward her.

Later in college… I actually had been studying art through high school, but in college, I took a poetry class.

Lynch: The love letters: what happened with those?

Cummings: Oh, yeah, she still has some today. Yes. With someone else. It doesn’t make life any less beautiful, though.

Lynch: Do you remember the first story you got published?

Cummings: I do. I was living in Rhode Island in a house on Church Street in Newport, down in the very touristy area. And I got a phone call from the editor of Portland Monthly Magazine in Portland, Maine, Colin Sargent, and I’m talking to him and he’s saying, “Can you give me 750 words?”

And I’m stammering.

He says at one point when I’m really slow to respond. He said, “Well, we’ll just have to forget the whole thing.”

(Laughs) Well, you talk about leaping to life. I just came to life there. And I said, “No, no, no, no, we’ll do whatever you want.”

He did the work. I mean, he was really skilled. He just knew how to cut. He wanted to capture the description of the lighting of a church. And the title of the story is “Electric Church.”

That was my first published story in the Portland Monthly Magazine.

This is probably over 1200 words. This is 1991.

A couple of weekends later, I drove up to his office on a weekend and I saw my name on the cover. It was being displayed as the next coming issue. That was the thunder in my road, you know.

Lynch: Tell me about where you grew up.

Cummings: In Harpers Ferry –right down here where the three states come together. My family grew up down over the hill, near the historic park. Getting close to “The hole,” you know, as this town was originally called. (laughs) “The Hole,” how glamorous.

We lived way down into The Hole, across from John Brown’s Wax Museum, in a little stone house. There were six of us –my parents, my two brothers, my sister.

Tourists were around us all the time. And on one hand, you had the park making, like an open air gallery or an open air mini Williamsburg during the 70s and 80s.

It was just making everything really nicely restored and beautiful. And then on the other hand, you had swarms of tourists and it was almost like a movie set. It was too surreal. Almost.

Lynch: The book is “The Spirit in My Shoes.” John, thank you very much.

Cummings: Thank you very much. It’s been a pleasure.

Book Club Brings The Sounds Of Silence To Morgantown Social Scene

Unlike traditional book clubs, everyone at Silent Book Clubs reads whatever they like in the company of others.

Standing atop Cooper’s Rock overlooking the Cheat River, far below on a recent Sunday morning, the sound that pervades is the wind in the treetops.

You would be excused for not noticing that a group of about a dozen people have congregated on the rock for their monthly meeting. They’re all sitting, reading silently, together.

This is the Silent Book Club.

“You read whatever you want, and you socialize if you want to,” said Nada Aboraya, the founder of Morgantown’s Silent Book Club chapter. “It’s a great way to meet new people, get book recommendations, and kind of just get more familiar with the community in this town that loves to read. Because surprisingly, lots of people here love to read.”

Originating in San Francisco over a decade ago, there are now more than 1,000 Silent Book Club chapters in 50 countries around the world led by local volunteers like Aboraya. According to a chapter map – some pun intended – on the organization’s website, there are at least six other groups in West Virginia including Huntington, Charleston and Elk City. There’s even another chapter in Morgantown.

“I found out there is another chapter already, shout out Antiquity Tea House for the first chapter in Morgantown,” Aboraya said. “They meet at their location, but the difference between mine is I wanted to meet in different local places. I wanted to rotate. So we’ve been everywhere.”

Readers at Silent Book Clubs enjoy their own books, distinct from traditional book clubs where everyone reads the same book.

*Photo Credit: Chris Schulz/West Virginia Public Broadcasting*

After growing up with her nose in a book, Aboraya said she recently realized that she stopped making time for reading in her life. Whenever she did, distractions were many, so she registered the Morgantown chapter late last year as a way to get herself back into reading.

“This is a small window of time, twice a month to meet with people, and just focus solely on reading, which is nice,” Aboraya said. “It kind of helped me. Everyone around you is reading, it’s not the same thing and there’s no obligation to socialize. But we’re all there reading together. So it’s awesome.”

Something Aboraya mentioned that is key to the enjoyment of Silent Book Club is that unlike traditional book clubs, everyone reads whatever they like. For example, Aboraya is reading two books in Sarah J. Mass’s Throne of Glass series.

Taylor Goldberg is one of Aboraya’s friends and a regular at the Silent Book Club. He said reading different books provides its own unique opportunities, while still allowing members to discuss their latest literary adventure.

“We’re probably going to be talking about books we’re reading,” Goldberg said. “With the Silent Book Club, you get to pick your own book and read it, but it definitely gives you ideas of things to read in the future. In the past, I’ve talked about reading with my friend, and he’s given me some new books to read.”

Goldberg said the group usually meets in cafes and restaurants – Aboraya said supporting and exploring local businesses was also a motivation for starting the group – but the outdoor location is a welcome change.

“This is out in nature, it’s kind of therapeutic with a nice breeze going on, and you get these awesome views and you’re reading,” he said. “I like this idea of doing a little reading session, and then we’re also planning on doing a hike afterwards. So that should be fun.”

Morgantown’s Silent Book Club members sit on Cooper’s Rock June 23, 2024.

*Photo Credit: Chris Schulz/West Virginia Public Broadcasting*

For Anthony Guzzi, who’s reading Lucky Red by Claudia Cravens, the chance to read outside is a welcome emphasis on the silent part of Silent Book Club.

“A lot of the places that we’ve been to have been kind of busy and noisy, just because the places we go to are still operating normally and they’re businesses,” he said. “Being able to get outside at a place like this. It’s just a lot more comfortable and relaxing.”

That said, Guzzi is grateful for the group and said he hopes to have the chance to keep coming back.

There seems to be no cause for concern about shutting down because Aboraya is just getting started.

She talked about organizing a meetup between state or even regional chapters, maybe at the October West Virginia Book Festival.

Aboraya said the group will continue to move around the region for the foreseeable future.

“West Virginia has a lot more now, specifically Morgantown has a lot of, like, small businesses,” she said. “I think going to different places, it’s a good way to show people that there’s a lot more to Morgantown than just the big chains, all that stuff. Some locations … people will come up to me and be like, ‘I didn’t know this coffee shop was here. The coffee here is fantastic. I didn’t know we had this bar, like this is awesome.’”

The group’s next meeting will be at a local public library July 9, a nice ease back into the hustle and bustle of the group’s usual haunts.

Preserving W.Va. History And How To Read And Socialize In Silence, This West Virginia Morning

On this West Virginia Morning, the Eastern Panhandle saw major military activity in the Civil War. But, driving through the region today, you wouldn’t know some of these historic sites exist. Also, in this show, one group in Morgantown has found a way to read and socialize in silence.

On this West Virginia Morning, the Eastern Panhandle saw major military activity in the Civil War. But, driving through the region today, you wouldn’t know some of these historic sites exist. One county’s government is partnering with a historic preservation nonprofit to change that. Together, they’re creating a new battlefield park that commemorates local history.

Jack Walker visited the battlefield site to discuss plans for the park, and why preserving West Virginia history matters.

Also, in this show, from movies and TV to live music, there are a lot of options for entertainment in your free time these days. As Chris Schulz reports, one group in Morgantown has found a way to read and socialize in silence.

West Virginia Morning is a production of West Virginia Public Broadcasting which is solely responsible for its content.

Support for our news bureaus comes from Shepherd University.

Chris Schulz produced this episode.

Listen to West Virginia Morning weekdays at 7:43 a.m. on WVPB Radio or subscribe to the podcast and never miss an episode. #WVMorning

Morgantown Nonprofit Mails Books To People Incarcerated Across Appalachia

Founded in 2004, the Appalachian Prison Book Project has mailed more than 70,000 books to people incarcerated in Appalachian prisons, with the goal of expanding access to books and educational resources.

Each week, volunteers comb through a stack of more than 200 letters on the second floor of the Aull Center, a historic twentieth-century home in Monongalia County now owned by the Morgantown Public Library.

Sent by people incarcerated across Appalachia, most of these letters contain the same request: a new book to read.

Some prisons in the United States have their own libraries, but often with narrow inventories and limited hours of operation. In turn, more than 50 organizations across the United States and Canada mail incarcerated people books missing from their library shelves.

In West Virginia, one nonprofit — the Appalachian Prison Book Project (APBP) — has distributed books throughout the region since 2004. In that twenty year span, APBP has mailed more than 70,000 books, according to Communications Coordinator Lydia Welker.

People in Appalachian prisons can submit written letters to APBP, requesting books they would like to receive through the mail, Welker said. APBP then examines each prison’s policies and connects readers with the book they requested, or one from a similar genre or subject area.

Volunteers join the project from all different backgrounds. Some are advocates for prison reform. Others, like Morgantown High School student Lilly Staples, do it from a love of books and desire to expand reading access.

Danielle Stoneberg prepares to send a book from the Appalachian Prison Book Project’s Morgantown office to an Appalachian prison.

*Photo Credit: Chris Schulz/West Virginia Public Broadcasting*

“It’s a really nice space for volunteer hours,” Staples said while volunteering at the Aull Center in April. “I’ve always loved to read, and so helping, giving other people that chance in their position really means something to me.”

Still, this work can be tricky. Books with divisive or controversial content — like violence and nudity — tend to be rejected outright by facility staff.

Other rules are subjective, changing from facility to facility. Welker said one prison even refused to take in a copy of The Lord of the Rings because it had illustrations of a fictional map.

“These rules are not set in stone,” Welker said. “It’s up to the discretion of whoever’s working in the mailroom or whatever prison system it is to decide if a book gets inside.”

Occasionally, books APBP sends are rejected by prison staff. APBP keeps a running list of which books are accepted at which facility to ensure that resources are not wasted.

Welker said APBP’s most common request is a dictionary. Other widely sought-after texts include textbooks, as well as books that contain medical or legal information.

Reference books are some of the most requested items from the Appalachian Prison Book Project.

*Photo Credit: Chris Schulz/West Virginia Public Broadcasting*

For the staff at APBP, this only further exemplifies the gaps in educational resources available to people who are incarcerated.

“It goes to show how much people need access to the outside world,” she said. “Very literally, information about how this world works.”

Mass incarceration in the United States often cuts people off from books and educational resources, which makes the work of APBP and similar prison book projects important, Welker said.

In 2022, the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics reported that 355 of every 100,000 U.S. residents were incarcerated — one of the highest rates globally.

Additionally, the national incarceration rate of Black residents was nearly five times the incarceration rate of white residents in 2022. Hispanic residents were also incarcerated at nearly double the rate of white residents nationally.

Without groups like APBP, thousands of residents — and a disproportionate number of Black residents — would lack access to reading resources.

For many staff members and volunteers, working with APBP has opened their eyes to realities like these, and the daily challenges that incarcerated people face across the United States.

Before joining APBP, mass incarceration in the United States “was never really something that seemed really direct to me,” said Danielle Stoneberg,

“It was never really something that seemed really direct to me, and kind of in my face,” Danielle Stoneberg, prison outreach coordinator, said.

Stacks of books sit on the shelves of the Appalachian Prison Book Project’s Morgantown office, ready to ship to people who are incarcerated.

*Photo Credit: Chris Schulz/West Virginia Public Broadcasting.*

“As I started to have these experiences of going inside and reading letters, and also just having conversations with people, … I started to realize that I have a lot more friends than I thought, who had loved ones who have been impacted by the system,” she said.

Stoneberg said prison book projects like APBP allow volunteers to acknowledge the humanity of people who are incarcerated and work to improve their lived experiences.

“Many of us who work here with APBP, we believe that individuals shouldn’t be judged for the mistake that they made. We wouldn’t want to be judged for the worst thing that we ever did,” she said. “That’s why I sit on the phone for 20, 30 minutes on hold with a prison just to get hung up on, or not get the answer that I want.”

Stoneberg said this work is an important step toward making a difference in the U.S. prison system. Now, she is encouraging others to get involved in the project, too.

“What I would tell people is go ahead and have these experiences,” she said. “See if that makes you believe in the humanity of people who are incarcerated.”

For more information on the Appalachian Prison Book Project, visit the project’s website.

Chris Schulz contributed reporting to this story.

Books In Prisons And How The Role Of ‘Dad’ Is Shifting, This West Virginia Morning

On this West Virginia Morning, being a parent is a 24-hour role, and a lifetime commitment that has historically fallen to women. As men have started to take on more domestic work, what it means to be a father has started to shift. Chris Schulz looks at these changes in our latest installment of “Now What? A Series on Parenting.”

On this West Virginia Morning, being a parent is a 24-hour role, and a lifetime commitment that has historically fallen to women. As men have started to take on more domestic work, what it means to be a father has started to shift.

Chris Schulz looks at these changes in our latest installment of “Now What? A Series on Parenting.”

Also, in this show, across the country, people who are incarcerated have reduced access to libraries, books and educational resources, according to the Appalachian Prison Book Project. For the past 20 years, the West Virginia-based nonprofit has worked to change that. They say that accessing books is a fundamental human right.

Jack Walker reports on the group’s history, and what it takes to get a book into an Appalachian prison.

West Virginia Morning is a production of West Virginia Public Broadcasting which is solely responsible for its content.

Support for our news bureaus comes from Shepherd University.

Chris Schulz produced this episode.

Listen to West Virginia Morning weekdays at 7:43 a.m. on WVPB Radio or subscribe to the podcast and never miss an episode. #WVMorning

Why An Appalachian School Board Pulled 57 Books Off Library Shelves

School boards have become the latest front in America’s culture wars — especially when it comes to books in school libraries that some people think are inappropriate for students. That situation has been playing out in Rockingham County, Virginia, which sits midway down the Shenandoah Valley.

This conversation originally aired in the April 14, 2024 episode of Inside Appalachia.

School boards have become the latest front in America’s culture wars — especially when it comes to books in school libraries that some people think are inappropriate for students.

That situation has been playing out in Rockingham County, Virginia, which sits midway down the Shenandoah Valley. In January, the school board voted to remove 57 books from school libraries, prompting an outcry from people who see this as a book ban.

Ashlyn Campbell has been covering the story for the Daily News-Record. Inside Appalachia Host Mason Adams reached out to Campbell to learn more about what’s happening.

Adams: We’re talking about Rockingham County, located in the Shenandoah Valley, where the school board voted 4-1 to remove 57 books from school libraries. Why did they take this vote?

Campbell: This was something that multiple members of the school board campaigned on in November. A new majority came in who were very vocally conservative. They’ve said that they’re concerned over sexual content, profanity and violence. At the meeting where they took the vote, they said, we read the books, they’re deeply disturbing to us, and we want to protect the kids and the county. So that’s kind of the gist of why they wanted to remove the 57 books.

Adams: What kinds of books were removed? Can you share some of the titles?

Campbell: It’s a broad list of books. A lot of them have to do with the LGBTQ community, racial issues, mental health, stuff like that. One of the books, Felix Ever After, is about transgender teen, which is a coming of age story. There are some books on the list that are considered classics — books like The Bluest Eye, Beloved from Toni Morrison and Slaughterhouse-Five. There are books on the list that do have sexual content, profanity, violence. Looking for Alaska is on the list.

And then there are one or two books that don’t have any sexual content, profanity, violence. One of them is The Invisible Boy, which is a picture book. And then the other one is Drama, which is a middle school theater book that has kissing but no real sexual content. With The Invisible Boy, which is a picture book that talks about not feeling alone and having empathy, one of the board members said that they think it was mistakenly included. There’s another [similar] title that has to do with race and evangelical Christianity and stuff like that. One of the school board members did say that she thinks the picture book was mistakenly included on the list.

Adams: How did students and parents respond to this decision by the school board?

Campbell: [The school board] said that this removal is temporary while they develop a new policy to review library books. The vast majority of parents and students that I’ve talked to have been very upset about the ban. Students have walked out at several of the high schools. They held a rally about all of the issues going on with the book ban. I know a lot of people have sent a lot of emails to the board sharing their concerns — they don’t think they should ban books, because they help represent students, and it’s a slippery slope, and stuff like that.

There are community members that have spoken in favor of the removal. From their point of view, they don’t want sexual content in books at school libraries. But for the most part, the vast majority of parents and students I’ve talked to or have spoken out at meetings have been against the decision.

Adams: One of the things that comes up in your story is the board members do clarify like this, they say it’s not a book ban. It’s a “temporary removal.” So what happens next in terms of process?

Campbell: They’ve started the process of creating the policy of how books enter libraries, and how books are reviewed if they’re challenged. The other week, they met with school librarians to talk about what policies they have in place, what they would like to see from the policy, stuff like that. I think that was the first meeting to talk through what those policies will look like.

They’ve said they want to hear from community members, parents, teachers, librarians, all those kinds of people to start developing the policy. They’ve said that they would like to get it out sooner rather than later. They had that first meeting, and then I think they’re going to have another meeting where they hear more from the community. But from there, they’re going to develop a policy and we’ll see what they decide to include.

Adams: One of your follow-up stories notes that this isn’t an isolated incident, but part of a national trend. And certainly, we’ve seen other communities in Appalachia that have done something similar. Can you tell us a little bit more about what’s happening in the bigger picture?

Campbell: Rockingham County is not the only school division that has experienced both challenges, book bans and removals. A lot of school divisions have removed a lot of similar titles or have similar lists that they’re removing. A lot of that has to do with this website called Book Looks, which is a book review website that, while it says it’s not connected to Moms for Liberty, it has ties to the group.

For Rockingham County, the board member who compiled the list said, I pulled these from parent complaints, but then went and researched through Book Looks. She has this document that the vast majority of the books that she researched, which was about half of the list, she said is from Book Looks. There’s at least one screenshot for one of the books that she pulled directly for Moms for Liberty, too, which is a similar theme across a lot of school divisions where they’re using Book Looks or sources like Moms for Liberty to either pull directly from those lists of books, or, like in Rockingham County, the board member used to research it.

PEN America has said that book challenges [and] book bans are on the rise. A lot of this has to do with those groups that are now pushing removal of books, like Moms for Liberty, who in a lot of school divisions are directly going in and advocating for removing a lot of the books that are also on the Rockingham County list.

Adams: So this decision was made back in January, and it’s got a lot of attention. There was a Washington Post op-ed, I see there’s a thread on Reddit, and a lot of other outlets have picked up the general story. Do you think that bigger attention has made a difference in Rockingham County at all?

Campbell: For the school board, no. Now, the National Coalition Against Censorship sent a letter to the school board, advocating for them to put the books back and to have certain things in their process to review books. PEN America also worked with a number of authors to again advocate for them to return the books, to not have a book ban.

When I’ve talked to the chair of the board about this, he said that he’s not interested in national groups’ opinions about what’s going on because he’s listening to his constituents in Rockingham County. I think he sent a one sentence email back to PEN America that was like, “My constituents are in Rockingham County.” When I talked to him about the National Coalition against Censorship letter, he said something similar. He’s not taking anything that they’re saying into account, because he’s listening to people in Rockingham County.

Adams: Have there been any changes since this happened in January? It’s been a couple of months.

Campbell: The biggest thing that’s happened is that meeting with librarians where they shared their thoughts. A lot of them said that the decision really hurt them because the board didn’t consult them beforehand. But for the most part, I think the board is going ahead with the new policy to review challenged books, and then also to determine how books end up in school and classroom libraries. There’s been a lot of backlash. There’s been a lot of discussion about what’s going on.

But from what I’ve seen from the school board, I think they’re just going to go forward with their plan of how they’re going to develop the policy. In one of the work sessions, they did pull from a lot of other school divisions that have examples of policies for libraries. And they’ve said, not everything that are on those policies they want to include, but they want to pick and choose.

Adams: From reading your story, it looks like there are existing procedures already set up for the libraries. Can you tell us more about what those look like?

Campbell: They have collection development policies for each school. So they use things that compile reviews. There’s a number of websites that they use to look at books and determine what’s going to be included in their libraries. The division has also had a policy that was used to review challenged material for library books or instructional material. Now, the board has said that’s only for instructional material. It’s been a practice to use it for library material, but really, the policy is only written for instructional material. The policy has been used for library material for a number of years.

For the school division, libraries have collection development policies. Parents can go in and research what books are in their school libraries. And parents also have the option to be notified when their child checks out books, so they can see what their kid is checking out and, from my understanding, it’s in the single digits for the number of people that have actually utilized that option. So there are school-specific collection development policies. They use a lot of similar resources. There also was a county policy that they said is used for instructional material, but has been used for library material in the past.