In 1999, a small group of Appalachian writers decided to establish a press with the aim of publishing their work as it relates to the region and to the environment. After six years, eleven volumes have been completed, which is impressive, considering their limited means. A significant book for 2006 will be an anthology of poetry on the subject of coal.

The name of the press comes from a mountain in southern West Virginia. Blair is the divide between two watersheds, westward into Logan County and the Guyandotte River and eastward into Boone County and the little Coal River. On its slopes in 1921, 5000 coal miners battled 1300 state police, deputies, mine guards and Federal troops in a war over unionization of the miners.

In 1972 on Buffalo Creek, a few miles from Blair, 125 people were drowned and 4000 left homeless when two slurry dams collapsed and flooded the hollow with black, viscous water.

Blair Mountain is now being mountaintop stripped. Please go to the Sierra Club Site for information on its destruction. Please support the efforts to prevent further decimation of the environment.