West Virginia University Press announced In Place, a new book series to be published under Vandalia Press, its creative imprint. The editors of this series are Jeremy Jones, author of “Bearwallow: A Personal History of a Mountain Homeland” and Elena Passarello, author of “Let Me Clear My Throat.”

“In Place” emerges from a desire to uncover more books about the complexity and richness of place. This series will publish literary nonfiction in various forms — narrative nonfiction, memoir, essay collections, cultural mediation and others — focusing on books firmly rooted in place. “In Place” creates a space to explore lives, history and landscapes.

The series will seek manuscripts that are both artful and accessible by emerging and established authors, and it will value work that explores the world in all of its detail and subtlety in order to uncover the universal within the particular.

Series editors are especially interested in places that are sometimes overlooked, in particular complex regions loaded with stories that seem somewhat voiceless in the current literary landscape. This series will embody Eudora Welty’s idea that, “One place understood helps us understand all places better.”

About the series editors:

Jeremy Jones (M.F.A., University of Iowa) is the author of “Bearwallow: A Personal History of a Mountain Homeland,” which won the gold IPPY in memoir and was named the 2014 Appalachian Book of the Year in nonfiction. His essays appear in Oxford American, Brevity, and The Iowa Review, among others, and have been named Notable in Best American Essays. He is an assistant professor of English at Western Carolina University.

Elena Passarello (M.F.A., University of Iowa) is the author of “Let Me Clear My Throat” and the forthcoming “Animals Strike Curious Poses,” both from Sarabande Books. Her essays have been published in Oxford American, Creative Nonfiction, Slate and the Iowa Review, among other journals, as well as the anthologies “After Montaigne” and “Cat is Art Spelled Wrong.” Passarello received fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, the Hambidge Center, the Oregon Literary Arts Foundation, and she recently won the 2015 Whiting Award in Nonfiction. She is an assistant professor of English at Oregon State University.�

Advisory board:
Sarah Einstein, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
Stephanie Elizondo Griest, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill
Silas House, Berea College and Spalding University
Bret Lott, College of Charleston.
Peggy Shumaker, University of Alaska Fairbanks
Ryan Van Meter, University of San Francisco
Wendy S. Walters, The New School University.

To learn more about this series and WVU Press, visit wvupress.com. For updates on books and events, follow WVU Press on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest or join our mailing list on wvupress.com.

-WVU-

AF/1/29/16

CONTACT: Abby Freeland, Marketing Manager at WVU Press
304 293-6188, abby.freeland@mail.wvu.edu

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