I just received my contributor’s copy of the Every River on Earth: Writing From Appalachian Ohio. This anthology was edited by the poet Neil Carpathios and published by Ohio University Press in Athens, Ohio.

From the anthology’s website:

Every River on Earth: Writing from Appalachian Ohio includes some of the best regional poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction from forty contemporary writers, both established and up-and-coming. The wide range of material from authors such as David Baker, Don Bogen, Michelle Burke, Richard Hague, Donald Ray Pollock, and others, offers the reader a window into daily life in the region. The people, the landscape, the struggles, and the deepest undercurrents of what it means to be from and of a place are revealed in these original, deeply moving, and sometimes shocking pieces.

The book is divided into four sections: Family & Folks, The Land, The Grind, and Home & Away, each of which explores a different aspect of the place that these authors call home. The sections work together beautifully to capture what it means to live, to love, and to die in this particular slice of Appalachia. The writing is accessible and often emotionally raw; Every River on Earth invites all types of readers and conveys a profound appreciation of the region’s character.

The authors also offer personal statements about their writing, allowing the reader an intimate insight into their processes, aesthetics, and inspirations. What is it to be an Appalachian? What is it to be an Appalachian in Ohio? This book vividly paints that picture.

You can learn more at the anthology’s website HERE — where you can read for free the title poem, the Table of Contents, the Foreword by Donald Ray Pollock, the Introduction by Neil Carpathios and author biographies. You can order the book directly from the publisher, purchase e-versions for various platforms, and request a desk/exam copy if you’re an instructor. Also, here’s the book’s Amazon page.

I’m proud as all get-out to have three of my poems in this anthology, including one poem previously published in The Cincinnati Review and two previously unpublished poems written while living in Scio, Ohio, a small southern Ohio village, pop. 800.

Thank you Neil Carpathios for including me in this wonderful volume!