Shepherd University has selected North Carolina-based author Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle as its 2025 Appalachian Heritage Writer-in-Residence.
North Carolina author Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle will visit West Virginia’s Eastern Panhandle this September as Shepherd University’s new Appalachian Heritage Writer-in-Residence.
Since 1998, the Appalachian Heritage Writer-in-Residence program has aimed “to celebrate and honor the work of a distinguished contemporary Appalachian writer,” according to the program’s website. This year’s residency runs from March 2025 to January 2026.
Clapsaddle published her debut novel, “Even As We Breathe,” with the University Press of Kentucky in 2020. The novel received the Thomas Wolfe Memorial Literary Award in 2021, was a finalist for the Weatherford Award and was listed as one of National Public Radio’s Best Books of 2020.
Clapsaddle said she feels “very fortunate” to receive the distinction from Shepherd.
“I was pleasantly — and that’s an understatement — surprised when I found out that I had been awarded it,” Clapsaddle told West Virginia Public Broadcasting. “I’m just really grateful.”
Beyond fiction writing, Clapsaddle has also explored nonfiction writing, including essays on Cherokee identity and community in contemporary North Carolina. Clapsaddle is an enrolled member of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, a tribe based in western North Carolina, and is the first writer from her tribe to publish a novel.
“It’s really important to me to talk about Eastern Band Cherokee as a living culture and our place in the Appalachian Mountains,” Clapsaddle said. “I do a lot of writing that talks about the similarities in culture between Cherokee and Appalachia in general. We share a lot of commonalities. And I think a lot of that is rooted in just a respect and reverence for this place — and, of course, a long history in this place.”
Clapsaddle said that manifests in her writing as explorations of how federal policies affect Appalachian and Cherokee communities, plus the value systems and senses of humor that unite members of both communities.
“A lot of time, people talk about values in the past tense, but I like to talk about where our values are manifested and how we carry them in our present day,” she said.
Clapsaddle said writing about indigenous identity in Appalachia can feel especially urgent because of a stereotype that the region is white.
“For me, it’s very much about bringing knowledge of who Cherokee are in the present tense forward. A lot of times we talk about indigenous communities past tense,” she said. “There’s, pun intended, a whitewashing of this region, and this belief that there are no indigenous people here and that all the history belongs in a museum about the past. So it’s a priority for me to talk in the present tense.”
The Shepherd University Center for Appalachian Studies and Communities is located in the Scarborough Library, pictured here.
Photo Credit: Jack Walker/West Virginia Public Broadcasting
As part of their residency, selected writers judge the West Virginia Fiction Competition, edit the annual Anthology of Appalachian Writers and visit Shepherd’s campus in September to host a series of writing workshops and author talks for students and community members.
Clapsaddle said this fall will not mark her first visit to West Virginia; she previously visited the state for a regional hot dog food tour.
“I do, hot dogs aside, have kind of a soft spot in my heart for West Virginia,” she said. “They’ve always treated me well.”
Benjamin Bankurst, director for the Shepherd University Center for Appalachian Studies and Communities, said the process of selecting this year’s writer-in-residence began with soliciting student feedback. He said many students on campus brought up Clapsaddle’s work.
“‘Even As We Breathe’ was a unanimous choice among our students, a couple of whom had seen Annettee speak at the Appalachian Studies Association conference and had known her work,” he said.
Bankurst said talking about indigenous writing and history in the present tense feels especially important this year, as the United States prepares to host celebrations nationwide commemorating the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 2026.
“I think this is just such a fortuitous coming together of themes as the nation wrestles with the meaning of the 250th anniversary of its founding,” Bankhurst said. “These are discussions that we should be having.”
As writer-in-residence, Clapsaddle succeeds Ohio County poet and children’s book author Marc Harshman, the West Virginia state poet laureate.
Bankhurst said the residency often inspires a sense of community among Appalachian writers, both with those who have previously held the residency and those who represent the future of Appalachian literature.
Writers-in-residence host workshops with local high school students in addition to on-campus events, and the fiction competition they judge is open to high school-age writers, Bankhurst said.
“It really serves as a way of ensuring an intergenerational experience for the community in West Virginia, beyond our students here on campus,” Bankhurst said.
This year, the writer-in-residence program is funded through a grant from the West Virginia Humanities Council, Shepherd announced in a Feb. 13 press release.
Clapsaddle said she is excited to visit Shepherd this fall and immerse herself in West Virginia’s literary community. She said she taught high school for over 12 years, so an educational setting like Shepherd’s campus is familiar territory.
“That’s where I feel most comfortable, with young people,” she said. “That makes me really happy.”
To learn more about the Appalachian Heritage Writer-in-Residence program, visit Shepherd University’s website.
The Return Of The Headless Man And The Murdered Girl
Mike Allen And The Button Bin
Mike Allen is an award-winning science fiction, fantasy and horror writer based in Roanoke, Virginia. Besides writing, Mike also runs Mythic Delirium, a micropress that “specializes in speculative fiction and poetry, with a penchant for writing that’s challenging to classify.”
Mason Adams visited Mike to talk about fantasy and horror and to hear excerpts from one of his stories.
Molly Born And The Spooky Old Tunnel
Spooky stories can be about people, but sometimes they’re just about a place. In Mingo County, West Virginia there’s an old single-lane railroad tunnel that’s become a local legend.
Back in 2018, reporter Molly Born ventured inside the Dingess tunnel to find out what makes it so unsettling.
Ghost Story
Some people are afraid of ghosts. Others want to figure out ways to communicate with them – like Anita Allen, a writer and paranormal investigator in Roanoke.
Mason Adams talked to her about a couple of her ghost encounters.
Another Ghost Story
Haunted places dot Appalachia – moonlit hollers, mist-shrouded cemeteries, and dusty buildings that hold unspoken secrets. Playwright and theater director Dan Kehde knows just such a place in Charleston, West Virginia.
Return Of the Headless Man And The Murdered Girl
James Froemel, an actor and storyteller in Morgantown, West Virginia brought us two stories from Ruth Anne Musick.
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Our theme music is by Matt Jackfert. Other music this week was provided by The Animals, Amy Lavere, Jason Isbell, Gerry Milnes, Sierra Ferrel, Southern Culture on the Skids and Red Sovine.
Bill Lynch is our producer. Zander Aloi is our associate producer. Our executive producer is Eric Douglas. Kelley Libby is our editor. Our audio mixer is Patrick Stephens.
You can send us an email: InsideAppalachia@wvpublic.org.
The opioid epidemic has long devastated Appalachia. Drug overdose deaths are falling both within West Virginia and the United States, but the epidemic has already claimed hundreds of thousands of lives in the past two decades — including tens of thousands of West Virginians.
The opioid epidemic has long devastated Appalachia. Drug overdose deaths are falling both within West Virginia and the United States, but the epidemic has already claimed hundreds of thousands of lives in the past two decades — including tens of thousands of West Virginians.
In part, addiction experts have traced the origins of the opioid epidemic to the over-prescription of painkillers. In the 2000s, facilities dubbed “pill mills” began popping up and distributing narcotics to individuals without medical documentation to support their need for the medication.
A doctor based in southern Ohio, Paul Volkman, stood trial in 2011 after being charged with operating such a facility between 2003 and 2006. Author and journalist Philip Eil’s father attended medical school with Volkman, and recounted the case in his new book, “Prescription for Pain.”
In the 2000s, many doctors took jobs in Appalachia “at these sketchy pain clinics that were almost always not affiliated with local hospitals, that were often owned by people who did not have medical backgrounds,” Eil said. This “opened this spigot of prescription drugs into an area that was really vulnerable.”
Ultimately, Volkman’s trial resulted in his conviction. He received the longest sentence given to any U.S. doctor for drug-related crimes during the opiate epidemic: four consecutive life sentences in prison.
Eil said his book includes more than a decade’s worth of correspondence with Volkman. Volkman’s crimes resulted in the deaths of several patients in Ohio and across the Ohio River in Kentucky; his trial also included testimony from a West Virginia pharmacist.
“In the book, it was really important to me to zoom out to tell that broader story of Appalachia and the opiate epidemic,” he said.
While the fallout from Volkman’s criminal proceedings came more than a decade ago, Eil said its lessons on accountability are still resonant for readers today, especially in Appalachia.
“The opiate epidemic, I always emphasize, is a manmade crisis. It’s not a natural disaster. It’s not a hurricane. It’s not an earthquake,” he said. “This has a lot of different people and institutions and organizations that are in some way responsible.”
Philip Eil will visit West Virginia bookstores this month on his promotional tour for the new book. You can find more information on the events on his website.
Ohio County author Marc Harshman has spent decades writing poetry and children’s books. He has served as West Virginia’s state poet laureate since 2012, and his 2023 poetry collection “Following the Silence” is a 2024 West Virginia Common Read selection.
This year, Harshman was recognized by Shepherd University as the 2024 Appalachian Heritage Writer-in-Residence. During his visit to Shepherdstown, Harshman sat down with reporter Jack Walker to discuss his work and Appalachian literature at large.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Walker: Marc, thank you very much for being here today. First I just want to ask: How has your week been? I know your schedule has been jam packed with a lot of different events. How has your visit to Shepherd been?
Harshman: It was terrific. It was a lovely time. I saw all kinds of people in all kinds of settings and visited three different high schools. There’s something very satisfying about doing that. I, of course, enjoy talking a little bit about poetry and trying to make sure that students see that poetry is something that can be accessible and inspiring and fun. But I have to say, part of what I most enjoy is fielding questions from the students after I’ve spoken about poetry and read a few of my own poems and to field their questions, which in every instance, at all three schools, were highly articulate and interesting.
Walker: I was wondering if you could tell us about your background and how you get started writing poetry and children’s books.
Harshman: I was raised on a small farm in the middle of nowhere in east central Indiana. But one of my clearest memories as a boy is that once-a-week trip to town for groceries was always a trip to the little Carnegie library there in that small town near where I grew up. As far back as I can remember, I can see dad sitting in one chair, a pile of books beside him. My mother in another chair, a pile of books beside her. And myself sitting in the middle of the old braided rug, a big pile of picture books beside me. And I realized that really changed my life. I would hear my father reciting poetry, even though he was a typically taciturn farmer. I remember sitting around my grandparents’ dinner table and just hearing all the gossip of the day told, which was a kind of storytelling. So that spark was lit early. I was in love with listening and hearing stories, and would go on to repay the gift by telling my own.
Walker: At what point did that translate into writing for you, going from this love of storytelling to this love of putting pen to paper?
Harshman: I’m not quite sure. I mean, I was scribbling, and I think it became more fervent in high school, and then I went off to college. I was not exclusively an English major. I was a religion major. That’s a whole other story. But, you know, the scribbling never stopped and, at some point, I think in graduate school, I sent my first poems off to magazines and would publish my first small chapbook in 1983.
Walker: We are talking today in West Virginia’s Eastern Panhandle, but you are visiting from a different panhandle, the Northern Panhandle. So you’re already familiar with Appalachia as a region, and it’s home to you. Speaking to that, many of your works are rooted in Appalachia, its heritage, its culture. How do you see Appalachia as a region influencing your work?
Harshman: I’ll say this. I have lived my adult life in northern West Virginia. There is a sense of community and a reverence for the landscape in Appalachia that is very finely tuned. I think perhaps nowhere else in the country is that sense of heritage as rich and a matter of pride as it is here in Appalachia. Of course, West Virginia is at the epicenter of the whole Appalachian region. I consider it a privilege to have lived my life here. I think the poems, certainly many of them, reflect the natural landscape. As well, however, as reflecting some of the challenges and frustrations of living in a place that too often has been beset by political prejudice from outside and poverty. So it’s a demand that is a delight to pursue when I’m writing about the beauty of the fields and woods, but also a challenge when I think about the extractive industries that have been so cruel.
Marc Harshman hosted a creative writing workshop at Shepherd University on Sept. 26. He talked to attendees about writing succinctly but with evocative detail.
Photo Credit: Jack Walker/West Virginia Public Broadcasting
Walker: Do you see your work as something that’s trying to transform the narrative around Appalachia? Is it something that’s trying to redefine what it means to be Appalachian?
Harshman: To be honest, I don’t see myself trying to do that. I’ve always thought there was a huge danger in trying to overly engage the political, certainly for me. Because if I begin to deal with something that’s more political, it sounds more like I’m on a rant, and that’s not good poetry. On the other hand, there is a kind of subversive nature to a good poem that will convince and convert, in the best of ways, someone else’s thinking about a particular issue. I can hope that the best of my work might accomplish that, even if I’m not conscious that’s what’s going on in the work. It all is, in the end, a big mystery. I simply try to write the best story I can, simply try to write the best poem I can.
You did ask earlier about the Appalachian nature of my work. I can certainly say that one of the children’s books I’m most pleased about is my third book called “Rocks in my Pockets,” which had its genesis in my hearing the renowned Appalachian storyteller Bonnie Collins telling me the kernel of that story sitting on her back porch in Doddridge County long, long ago. And I took that little kernel of a story and stretched it. It became “Rocks in my Pockets,” with my name and Bonnie’s name on the cover. It was a real treat, and it’s got all the best of Appalachia in it: the country people outwitting the city people and having fun at the same time.
Walker: A lot of your stories are rooted in the natural world, its mysteries, its complexities. What makes this a recurring motif for you?
Harshman: I suppose part of the answer simply is that I was raised in the country, even after we lost the farm we spoke about. We probably left the farm when I was about 10 years old, but I would continue to live in the country. So my friends were all farm boys or farm girls, and I grew up pitching hay and shoveling manure and helping paint barns and so on. So, that sense of the natural world and the work of the rural has been a part of me all my life.
It’s also true, I realize now, that on my mother’s side, her brother and my grandfather were both avid hunters and fishermen, and I would go with them, especially fishing. So there was that little ingredient of the natural world, too. I mean, I’m a terrible fisherman, but I could sit by the edge of a river or stream for hours, if not days, and be perfectly happy just to look and watch, see what birds flew by, see what fish neglected to bite my worm.
Walker: What do you think an Appalachian writer’s responsibility is to address these topics? What power do you think literature has to make real change in that regard?
Harshman: I do think there’s a kind of seduction that could go on with good literature about certain issues like that. And I do think that when I think of something like mountaintop removal mining or the fracking industry in my part of the state, they’re horrific practices. In the end, they are not going to have been worth the degradation to the environment that they’ve caused. It’s climate change, it’s a climate crisis. The best thinkers, the best scientists, make it quite clear: There is no escaping the urgency that faces all of us to change and do something in our private lives. Now, whether a creative writer has to — I mean, yes, I do think creative writers have the ability to do something about that. I’m not sure that I’m the best at doing that, but I will bear witness however I can in my work and in my own private life.
Marc Harshman has served as West Virginia’s state poet laureate since 2012, and has published tens of books in his career as an author.
Photo Credit: Jack Walker/West Virginia Public Broadcasting
Walker: You’re an author who obviously stretches across genre. In an August 2024 interview, you described the link between your dual pursuits of writing children’s books and poetry, saying: “There’s a succinctness of form that’s really quite similar between writing for children and writing poetry.” Could you expand on this interplay between the genres that you write in?
Harshman: I think the best thing I could do there is simply reiterate what you read, that there is a succinctness of form that’s similar between writing a children’s picture book and writing a poem. You try to say as much as you possibly can with as few words as possible. Now yes, of course, the audience is distinctly different, and that means that the language will be perhaps a different level for those two. But that impulse to say as much as one can in a condensed form, that’s something shared, I think, between some of my poetry and certainly my children’s books.
Walker: I know that your newest poetry selection, “Following the Silence,” was West Virginia’s 2024 Common Read. You also have served as the West Virginia poet laureate for, forgive me if I’m wrong now, 12 years now? Is that right?
Harshman: 12 or starting my thirteenth. I was appointed in 2012 of May.
Walker: Got it. And I was wondering, could you just tell me a little bit about you know this role you have in terms of representing the Mountain State, representing West Virginia. What has that meant for you?
Harshman: It’s been an honor and a privilege. I’m humbled by it. I never dreamed that I would get the call from the governor’s office appointing me to be the next poet laureate back in 2012. As I’ve said numerous times, not just this week, but ever since my appointment almost, my understanding of the role has grown. Not only do I want to obviously trumpet the achievements of my fellow poets here in West Virginia, but very quickly I realized I want to promote the achievements of all the literary arts, — fellow poets and novelists and short story writers. Quickly, I began to realize that this has to include the non-fiction writers as well as journalists. Then suddenly, because it’s such a small state, I realized what a unique platform I have to speak. So it’s a pleasure to also begin promoting dancers and sculptors and painters and musicians. So whenever I can, if somebody has a new piece of music out, or somebody’s got a great art exhibit being placed somewhere, I want to make sure people know about it.
Walker: This week, you’ve had the chance to meet aspiring writers and writers of different levels of experience. What advice do you have for people looking to pursue creative writing?
Harshman: It sounds idiot simple, Jack. But what I say, and have even said in front of audiences — I suppose I should be embarrassed to say such things because it sounds so simple — but truly, if you feel you’ve got this itch, better yet, this passion to put pen to paper, then read. Read everything as much as you can, all the time. If you think you want to be a poet, for God’s sake, make sure you’re reading novels and short stories and nonfiction. Then, when you do start writing, don’t just write poetry. Make yourself write prose. You want every tool you can possibly get as a writer. Learn the craft of good writing and you’ll get there. You will get there. The reading comes first, and then the scribbling.
Walker: The last question I had for you is: You’ve been a very prolific writer. What’s next for you? Are there any other books on the horizon?
Harshman: I hope I can just go to the end scribbling. I mean the end the end scribbling. I’ve got a new book coming out from the Vandalia Press of West Virginia University in the spring, called “Dispatch from the Mountain State.” I’ve got a whole host of other poems that I’ve been neglecting for a little while, and I’m very eager to be pulling them into a full-length collection. I’ve got that project, and I’ve got at least a couple of children’s stories that I’ve also neglected this past year or two, and I really want to get back to them. So I’ve got the new book coming from WVU and rough drafts and all kinds of other things on my desk at home.
Walker: Well, Marc, thank you very much for taking the time to sit down with us as this year’s Appalachian Heritage Writer-in-Residence. I greatly appreciate it.
Harshman: You’re very welcome. It’s been a pleasure.
On this West Virginia Morning, Christopher Rowe is a nationally recognized science fiction and fantasy writer. He imagines the future not in cities or outer space, but in rural areas like the one he grew up in.
Kentucky Public Radio’s Sylvia Goodman spoke with Rowe just after he moved back to the Kentucky county where he grew up.
Plus, September is Hunger Action Month, a campaign meant to raise awareness about hunger and food insecurity in the United States.
Reporter Jack Walker talked to Chad Morrison, development director at Mountaineer Food Bank about hunger in West Virginia.
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 and Marshall University School of Journalism and Mass Communications.
Maria Young 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
Major HIV outbreaks in Huntington and Charleston over recent years have exposed conflicting views on the disease among state officials and national experts. Most disagreement surrounds a single topic: needles.
On this West Virginia Morning, major HIV outbreaks in Huntington and Charleston over recent years have exposed conflicting views on the disease among state officials and national experts. Most disagreement surrounds a single topic: needles.
West Virginia Public Broadcasting and the Global Health Reporting Center report together on this issue, with support from the Pulitzer Center. It was reported by Caleb Hellerman, with production help from Emily Rice, as part of an ongoing series called “Public Health, Public Trust.”
Also this episode, southwestern Virginia author Jim Minick is a staple at Appalachian book and literary festivals. The author or editor of eight books, his latest is called “The Intimacy of Spoons.”
Inside Appalachia‘s Bill Lynch talked with Minick about Appalachian book festivals and writing about silverware.
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.
Maria Young 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
