About Blair Mountain Press
Edwina
Pendarvis,
Co-Editor
Victor M. Depta, Co-Editor
Betty Huff, Managing Editor
| Advisory Board |
Judy Light Ayyildiz
Ruth Bolzenius
Hazel Browning
Phillip T. Carson
Anna Clark
|
Robert G. Cowser
Danny Fulks
Tracy S. Hall
Helen Higbee
Julie Hill
|
Robert Locke
Trampas Matney
Irene McKinney
A. E. Stringer
Allen Waugh
Judy Yancy |
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.
