Salam Nominated for National Book Award

Pocahontas Press is pleased to announce that one of our recent publications, Between Two Spaces: Reflections on the Spiritual in Art, by Halide Salam, has been nominated for the 2008 National Book Award in Nonfiction.

Salam is a Muslim American who came to the United States from Pakistan as a teen in order to pursue an education in art. She is now a self-proclaimed “philosopher in paint” and has been called “a true artist, one who reaches far into the depth of her soul and heart to bring her experience, her truth and her reality to us, the viewer” by Tim Davis, director and owner of International Visions - The Gallery, in Washington, DC.

In Between Two Spaces, Salam explains the development and progression of her artistic style as being cultured from a combination of influences from her family, her religion’s teachings, her own experiences and her personal beliefs. Her understanding of nature and thirst for knowledge are fused and embedded into the forms she creates in her paintings. In addition to the book’s rich assortment of autobiographical, historical, intellectual, and philosophical information, Salam includes full-color photographs of some of her paintings.

Her work was displayed at the William King Regional Arts Center in Abingdon, Virginia, and will be displayed at City Gallery in Galax, Virginia, starting June 13, 2008.

When Halide Salam first arrived in the United States, she had a four-year scholarship to attend Columbus College of Art and Design in Ohio. Since then she has graduated from New Mexico Highlands University with a Master’s degree in painting and drawing and is currently Professor of Art at Radford University in Virginia.

Summer Clearance Offer!

In a frantic display of generosity (and an attempt to create more storage space), Pocahontas Press is offering a complimentary copy of one of our classic publications with the order of one of our latest releases.

Feel free to specify poetry or history/memoirs, so we know what genre to send you. New releases include:

Between Two Spaces, by Halide Salam

Fighting to Protect the Highlands, by David Elkinton

Abiding Appalachia, by Marilou Awiakta

Sports Turf Management, by Michael Goatley et al

Mention this offer when ordering. If submitting a written order, simply write "Summer Clearance Offer: [SPECIFY GENRE]" anywhere on the order form.

Happy Reading!

Marshall University Hosts 31st annual conference on Appalachian Studies

HUNTINGTON, WV -- More than six hundred people descended on this small West Virginia city, nestled up against the east bank of the Ohio River, for the Appalachian Studies Association's 31st annual conference. This was the first time in ASA history that the conference was held at Marshall University, which houses the ASA headquarters. The conference was a flurry of academics, public officials, publishers, musicians, concerned citizens, all to celebrate and protect Appalachian culture. The conference began Friday morning, March 28th, and ended Sunday morning.

The focus of this year's gathering was "The Road Ahead," emphasizing cross-generational discourse and cooperation. A main concern of the gathering, as usual, was to sort out the dubious future of Appalachia, to ensure that Big Coal does not rob us of our futures as well as homes.

ILoveMountains.org won this year's award for best website. After visiting the site, you'll understand why: it is a comprehensive guide to the tragedy of mountain top removal (MTR) mining. Numerous facts, videos, and photographs elucidate the hard reality of MTR and what it's doing not only to West Virginia, but to Kentucky, Tennessee, and southwest Virginia as well. The site even includes a power plant tracker -- enter your zip code and it will generate a list of coal-fired power plants in your area that are burning coal extracted from MTR sites in West Virginia. Please, please, please visit the site. At least watch the short video below. Knowledge is power. And Appalachia needs all the power she can get (besides coal power, of course).

Pocahontas Press proudly held a display table at the conference, amid an assortment of high-caliber scholarly publishers such as Ohio University Press, West Virginia University Press, and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill University Press. We felt privileged to be part of such a display. Also holding tables was an array of civic and activist groups, such as the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition. We were fortunate enough to share the trip with Dave Elkinton, author of Fighting to Protect the Highlands, who came to promote his book. And we sold quite a few.

It was a great conference! Thanks to Shaunna Scott, the ASA President, Chris Green, the Conference Program Chair, and Dan Holbrook, the Local Arrangements Chair. And to everyone at Marshall University who made arrangements, contacted people, set up chairs, served food, picked up trash, and did all the behind-the-scenes work that no one saw. Thanks to the students for being away on spring break and letting us have the whole campus to ourselves. Thanks to the Pullman Plaza hotel for boarding, I'd say, at least eighty percent of the conference guests, and supplying them with complimentary drinks. Despite the temptation of free booze, we did manage to get away from the hotel in time to sell some books, participate in a few panel discussions, and see some presentations. Huntington's a nice town, well worth the three-hour drive. As helpless as we feel sometimes against ruthless coal companies, a gathering of energetic, optimistic people such as this gives us hope for Appalachia.

Between Two Spaces

Pocahontas Press proudly announces the arrival of Radford University Professor Dr. Halide Salam's book, Between Two Spaces: Reflections of the Spiritual in Art. It is a stunning book -- hardbound in full color, with 18 color photographs. Virginia Tech undergraduate Suzanne Day did an excellent job designing and editing the book for us, Radford University graduate student Leemar Thorpe created a brilliant cover, and we thank Taylor Publishing once again for printing another fantastic book.

Dr. Salam's paintings will be featured at an exhibit entitled "Beyond Aesthetics" at the William King Regional Arts center in Abingdon, Virginia. The opening is this Friday, February 15th, and the exhibit will run until May 25th. Pocahontas Press is looking forward to attending.

Pocahontas Press Nominates Author for RFK Jr. Award

Pocahontas Press has proudly and confidently nominated David Elkinton's book, Fighting to Protect the Highlands, for the 2008 Robert F. Kennedy Book Award. Each year, this award goes to the book which “most faithfully and forcefully reflects Robert Kennedy’s purposes — his concern for the poor and the powerless, his struggle for honest and even-handed justice, his conviction that a decent society must assure all young people a fair chance, and his faith that a free democracy can act to remedy disparities of power and opportunity."

Fighting to Protect the Highlands documents the legal and political struggles of the West Virginia Highlands Conservancy, a small group of citizens that undertook to preserve areas of West Virginia that otherwise would have been lost to mining and development. They have not always prevailed, but they often succeed, and all Americans are the beneficiaries.

The winner will be announced in the Spring. We wish Dave and all the other nominees the very best of luck!

Sports Turf Management in the Transition Zone

We received the finished copies of Sports Turf Management in the Transition Zone, and it's beautiful! Congratulations to the Virginia Sports Turf Managers Association!

We'd like to thank Taylor Publishing for printing a very attractive book, and for their endless patience and cooperation.

Pocahontas Press highly recommends Taylor for anyone looking for a classy, well-organized printer. They're currently printing another of our books, and we can't wait to see it!

Sports Turf Management was developed by faculty and researchers at Virginia Tech for the Virginia Sports Turf Managers Association. It is a guide to the development and maintenance of safe, functional, and aesthetically pleasing sports fields. Retail is $24.95. Five dollars of each sale goes towards turf grass research at Virginia Tech. You can order Sports Turf Management by contacting us through our website.

Poet to Publish Children's Book

Mildred Nash wrote a poetry book for us back in 1989, and now we're working on her first children's book, Stars for Starters. It aims to help children learn the constellations.

Susan Strayer, from Hollins University, will be designing the book for us.

Proof-checking

We received proofs for two books today -- for the Virginia Tech turf management book and for the art book by Radford University professor Halide Salam -- and they both look ok. There were, of course a few minor errors, but it's hard to say whether or not they're worth changing at this point. The purpose of a proof is to insure that everything prints as desired, to allow for last-minute changes. It's the last chance to make alterations.

But how picky should you be? Is it worth it to make minor spacial adjustments? For example, if a picture is one-sixteenth of an inch off center, should we bother to correct it? It is visible, but barely.

Some printers discourage such minor changes by charging per page for every proof correction they have to make. One printer wanted to charge us fifteen dollars per page for even the tiniest of changes, such as the 1/16 inch correction mentioned earlier. Such a policy hardly facilitates last-minute scrutiny on our part. We understand that it takes work-hours to make corrections; but for the sake of creative integrity, some leniency must be granted.

NPR

Anyone have any success stories or advice about getting your authors airtime on public radio stations?

Public radio is a great asset to the community, and many of our authors could benefit greatly by being featured on their programs.

We're working on pitching David Elkinton's book, Fighting to Protect the Highlands: The First Forty Years of the West Virginia Highlands Conservancy, to NPR stations in Appalachia, hoping to have him featured on a program such as Studio Virginia (in the Roanoke area) or Inside Appalachia (in West Virginia).

Before the holiday, Paula Stanley, Radford University Professor and author of Finding Endurance, was featured on Studio Virginia to discuss her book of poems published by Pocahontas Press. We're hoping that Paula will is the first of many Pocahontas Press authors to be featured on public radio.

Variorum (noun)

This is an edition containing various versions of a text. The American Heritage Dictionary.