West Virginia University Press is the only university press, and the largest publisher of any kind, in the state of West Virginia. A part of West Virginia University, they publish books and scholarly journals by authors around the world, with a particular emphasis on Appalachian studies, history, higher education, the social sciences, and interdisciplinary books about energy, environment, and resources. They also publish works of fiction and creative nonfiction, and collaborate on innovative digital publications, notably West Virginia History: An Open Access Reader.
Enraptured Space
Gender, Class, and Ecology in the Work of Paula Meehan
The first extensive study devoted to leading contemporary Irish poet Paula Meehan.
- Copyright year: 2025
Blue Futures, Break Open
A Novel
This debut novel by a Ghanaian writer answers the question, “When the souls of enslaved Black people flew away to freedom, where did they go?” with a queer Black femme take on traditional African religions and Vodou, highlighting the interdependence of magic and freedom.
- Copyright year: 2025
The Doom of the Great City; Being the Narrative of a Survivor, Written A.D. 1942
This first critical edition of William Delisle Hay’s novel introduces readers to the earliest tale of urban apocalypse and environmental devastation through a curated collection of historical excerpts and contemporary scholarly discussions of global warming, colonialism, public health, and the Anthropocene.
- Copyright year: 2025
This Book is Free and Yours to Keep
Notes from the Appalachian Prison Book Project
2024 Weatherford Award Winner, Nonfiction
Through the essays, letters, and artwork created by people in prison, this collection provides insight into the Appalachian Prison Book Project—a nonprofit that provides books to incarcerated people in West Virginia, Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, and Maryland.
- Copyright year: 2024
Softie
Stories
2025 PEN America Finalist, Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Short Story Collection
2025 National Book Award Honoree, "5 Under 35"
In beautifully melancholy stories of magical realism, the women and girls in Softie transform their bodies and test their sanity, trying to find meaning in the loneliest of places.- Copyright year: 2024
Indigenous Ecocinema
Decolonizing Media Environments
Foregrounding the voices of Indigenous intellectuals, Monani reframes our popular and scholarly understandings of Indigenous cinema as discursively and materially entangled in the environment.
- Copyright year: 2024
Saharan Winds
Energy Systems and Aeolian Imaginaries in Western Sahara
A history of Saharan winds melds into a discussion of energy development and the politics of energy systems, arguing that changing the way we imagine and understand wind will help ensure a globally just wind energy future.
- Copyright year: 2024
Cutover Capitalism
The Industrialization of the Northern Forest
2024 George Perkins Marsh Prize Runner-up
Compelling, candid, and sometimes violent stories drawn from oral history frame the American lumberjack at the intersection of labor and environment.
- Copyright year: 2024
The Madison Women
Gender, Higher Education, and Literacy in Nineteenth-Century Appalachia
By uncovering how higher education and gender roles evolved in Appalachia over time, this book delivers a history that contradicts the stereotype of the region as hostile to education—including mini biographies of women who attended Madison College in the 19th century.
- Copyright year: 2024
Enclosure Architect
A Novel
An indigent queer sculptor details the culmination and dissolution of her chosen family of artists, bohemians, and libertines in an American city engulfed in civil conflict.
- Copyright year: 2024