On the latest episode of Now, Appalachia, Eliot interviews Affrilachian poet, educator, and children's book author Frank X. Walker about his latest children's book A IS FOR AFFRILACHIA. A native of Danville, Kentucky, Frank X Walker is the first African American writer to be named Kentucky Poet Laureate. Walker has published eleven collections of poetry, including Turn Me Loose: The Unghosting of Medgar Evers, which was awarded the 2014 NAACP Image Award for Poetry and the Black Caucus American Library Association Honor Award for Poetry. He is also the author of Buffalo Dance: The Journey of York, winner of the 2004 Lillian Smith Book Award, and Isaac Murphy: I Dedicate This Ride, which he adapted for stage, earning him the Paul Green Foundation Playwrights Fellowship Award. His poetry was also dramatized for the 2016 Contemporary American Theater Festival in Shepherdstown, WV and staged by Message Theater for the 2015 Breeders Cup Festival.

On the latest episode of Now, Appalachia, Eliot speaks with historian Lindsay Chervinsky about the latest book she edited with Dr. Matthew Costello titled MOURNING THE PRESIDENTS: LOSS ANS LEGACY IN AMERICAN CULTURE. Lindsay is a Senior Fellow at the Center for Presidential Studies at Southern Methodist University and she teaches about the presidency at the School of Media and Public Affairs at George Washington University. Her columns can be found at Governing and Washington Monthly, and she contributes to the Washington Post, USA Today, Ms. Magazine, the Bulwark, NBC Think!, the Wall Street Journal, TIME, The Hill, and CNN. In her spare time, she loves hiking with her American Foxhound, John Quincy Dog Adams (Quincy for short).

On the latest episode of Now, Appalachia, Eliot speaks with editor and nonfiction author Wendy Welch about her latest book "Masks, Misinformation, and Making Do: Appalachian Health-Care Workers and the COVID-19 Pandemic." Wendy is the executive director of the Southwest Virginia Graduate Medical Education Consortium and the author, coauthor, or editor of six books, including Fall or Fly: The Strangely Hopeful Story of Foster Care and Adoption in Appalachia (also from Ohio University Press). She advocates for social justice in health care and other critical areas of development across Appalachia.

On the latest episode of Now, Appalachia, Eliot interviews fiction author Ramona Reeves about her latest short story collection IT FALLS GENTLY ALL AROUND, winner of the 2022 True Heinz Literature Prize. Ramona grew up in Alabama. She has won the Nancy D. Hargrove Editors’ Prize and been an A Room of Her Own fellow and a resident at the Kimmel Nelson Harding Center for the Arts. Her writing has appeared in the Southampton Review, New South, Bayou Magazine, Texas Highways, and others.

On the latest episode of Now, Appalachia, Eliot interviews author Mary Hazen Ynigues about her new book CHRISTMAS EVE IN THE MOUNTAIN STATE. Mary is a is a pun poet who believes in the moxie of the Mountain State! She served on Elkins City Council and earned two degrees in history with a thesis on an Appalachian Mine Wars community. Originally from Memphis, Tennessee, Marly lives in Morgantown, West Virginia, with her spouse Keola and their cats.

On the latest episode of Now, Appalachia, Eliot speaks with horror author Andy Davidson about his latest novel THE HOLLOW KIND. Andy is the Bram Stoker Award nominated author of In the Valley of the Sun and The Boatman's Daughter, which was listed among NPR's Best Books of 2020, the New York Public Library's Best Adult Books of the Year, and Library Journal's Best Horror of 2020. Born and raised in Arkansas, he makes his home in Georgia with his wife and a bunch of cats.

On the latest episode of Now, Appalachia, Eliot interviews poet Sara Moore Wagner about her latest collection HILLBILLY MADONNA. Sara is the author of Swan Wife (winner of the 2021 Cider Press Review Editor's Prize), a recipient of a 2022 Individual Excellence Award from the Ohio Arts Council, a 2021 National Poetry Series Finalist, and the recipient of a 2019 Sustainable Arts Foundation award. She is the author of the chapbooks Tumbling After (Redbird, 2022) and Hooked Through (Five Oaks Press, 2017). Her poetry has appeared in many journals and anthologies including Sixth Finch, Waxwing, Nimrod, Western Humanities Review, Tar River Poetry, and The Cincinnati Review, among others. She lives in West Chester, OH with her filmmaker husband Jon and their children, Daisy, Vivienne, and Cohen.

On the latest episode of Now, Appalachia, Eliot interviews YA author Kevin Dunn about his latest book VICIOUS IS MY MIDDLE NAME. Kevin is in several bands, runs a small record label, publishes zines, and writes for Razorcake magazine. He also works at a small liberal arts college, where he teaches and publishes on a range of topics from African politics to international relations to global punk. He and his family split their time between Western New York state and Western North Carolina. Vicious is My Middle Name is his first novel.

On the latest episode of Now, Appalachia, Eliot interviews poet Thomas Richardson. Thomas is a teacher and writer. Born in Raleigh, North Carolina, and raised in Columbus, Mississippi, he earned his bachelor's degree from Millsaps College and master's degrees from Vanderbilt University and Mississippi University for Women. He teaches English at the Mississippi School for Mathematics and Science in Columbus, where he resides with his wife Hillary, son Emmett, and their pets.

On the latest episode of Now, Appalachia, Eliot speaks with author and linguist Dr. Michael Rost about his latest book THE JOURNEY HOME: PORTRAITS OF HEALING. Michael is a renowned American linguist, specializing in psycholinguistics, language acquisition, language loss, in dementia. He has worked on language project in multiple countries and government institutions. Formerly a professor of linguistics, he currently lives in San Francisco as an independent scholar and author.