The Appalachia Book Company is a non-profit publisher and literary event company dedicated to empowering the voices of central Appalachia. We seek to preserve and promote the rich literary history of our region and to discover and provide opportunities to emerging writers. We publish a chapbook series called Made in Appalachia along with special projects.
We look for writers who hail from central Appalachia, the Appalachia subregion as defined by the Appalachian Regional Commission. This subregion includes parts of eastern Kentucky, southern West Virginia, southwestern Virginia, and eastern Tennessee. The area is remote, mountainous, and traditionally associated with the coal mining industry.
We also encourage writers with stories based in central Appalachia to submit.
We embrace our local dialect. We won't stumble over phrases like "If you don't care to" or "I'd reckon" or "rurnt." If you have a story with mamaws and papaws settin' under a paw paw tree, we get it. That said, we do not ask our writers to perform their Appalachian heritage. There is no Appalachian identity or subject matter that we are specifically looking for.
We pay our writers and publish in print.
Appalachia Book Company seeks playwrights to adapt Appalachian ballads into short radio plays for a podcast in production.
- We're seeking up to 4 experienced playwrights (MFA candidates or experience equal to) from this region or with the demonstrated ability to write in a central or southern Appalachian dialect.
- Each playwright will be tasked with adapting a preselected Appalachian ballad into a short radio play, using lyrics and contextual informational provided by our research team. Radio plays will be performed as a part of the podcast series Blood Roots on Appalachian Ballads being produced by Appalachia Book Company.
- Pay is $625 for the final draft of each 10-15 minute radio play, which includes collaboration on rewrites with the director (and potentially producer of the podcast) in the way a playwright and director would traditionally collaborate on the first production of a new play.
- Timeline: Playwrights will be selected in February and will have an onboarding meeting with our research and development team. First drafts of plays are due in March.
- The podcast will be recorded in front of a live audience in Pikeville, KY.
Interested playwrights, please submit a sample of your work and tell us about your connection to central Appalachia and/or Appalachian balladry.
We seek previously unpublished short stories for our signature chapbook series.
We prefer single story submissions. However, writers can submit up to three stories for a maximum total word count of 8,000 words. Please allow up to three months for a response.
Please be advised: A researcher will analyze submitted works for the use of any Appalachian elements. The submitting writer's name will not be a part of the study, and the submitted work will not be reproduced without the writer's consent.
We seek previously unpublished essays for our signature chapbook series, Made In Appalachia. Nonfiction pieces should be no longer than 10,000 words. Please allow up to three months for a response.
Note: A researcher will analyze submitted works for the use of any Appalachian elements. The submitting writer's name will not be a part of the study, and the submitted work will not be reproduced without the writer's consent.
Calling all hilljack writers: What does Appalachia's future look like? We seek previously unpublished science and speculative fiction for an anthology to be published in spring 2025. Stories should be no longer than 8,000 words and must be set in central Appalachia.