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Bookable Space

Bookable Space with Valerie Nieman

Season 1, Ep. 13

In this episode of Bookable Space, Valerie Nieman joins us to read from and talk to us about her book, To The Bones.

In conversation with Yvonne Battle-Felton, author of Remembered.


Bio: Valerie Nieman has toured extensively for her five novels (the latest being In the Lonely Backwater) and three collections of poetry. To the Bones, her genre-bending novel about the coal industry and its effects on Appalachia, was a finalist for the Manly Wade Wellman Award. She has published short fiction, nonfiction, and poetry from The Georgia Review to Poetry to New Writing Scotland and has had her work selected for numerous anthologies: most recently, You Are the River, Eyes Glowing at the Edge of the Woods, and Ghost Fishing: An Eco-Justice Poetry Anthology. She appears regularly in juried reading series, and teaches at John C. Campbell Folk School and other venues. She has held state and NEA creative writing fellowships. A graduate of West Virginia University and Queens University of Charlotte and a former journalist, she is professor emeritus of creative writing at NC A&T State University. 


Synopsis: Darrick MacBrehon wakes in a pit of bones. Bloodied and disoriented, the man who staggers into Redbird, WV, draws the sympathy and help of Lourana Taylor, who’s been following any lead to find her missing daughter—even the wild tales of this zombie-like figure struggling with new and deadly powers. Along with a disgraced deputy and a journalist investigating a ruined river, Darrick and Lourana fight the multigenerational conspiracy that’s bled the land and people of Redbird, confronting the Kavanaugh coal barons who legend says can “strip a man to the bones.”

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