West Virginia Writers Podcast E. Meritus (Eric Fritzius)

The writer Lee Maynard passed away on June 16, 2017, in New Mexico. He was an infamous son of the Appalachian literary scene due to his less than flattering depiction of growing up in West Virginia in his novel Crum--infamously banned from sale at Tamarack. What negative publicity it received, however, drew more attention to the book, which is, at its heart, a love letter to the state.

For the past 15 years, Lee has been a regular presenter at the WV Writers Summer Conference, often accompanied by his friend and collaborator Pops Walker. In this episode we talk to Pops himself about Lee and his work. Also included are Lee's previous podcast appearances, including a recording of one of Lee's readings with Pops Walker, a resonant interview he did with Cat Pleska in 2009, and other recorded material.

The Seward Whale Strike Tragedy, they called it. Twenty-five people dead. The worst accident in Alaska’s tourism history since Will Rogers’ plane went down in ‘35.

Only one man left alive knows the truth of what really happened -- the man everyone agrees caused the tragedy to start with. And if there's one thing he's sure of, the thing they hit that day was no whale.

Presented here is his testimony, as transcribed for an interview with Paranorm Violations Magazine.

This podcast adapts the short story "The Ones that Aren't Crows" found in the collection A Consternation of Monsters.

Ed Davis is the WV-native author of the novels I Was So Much Older Then and The Measure of Everything. His third novel, The Psalms of Israel Jones was recently published by WV University Press. It tells the story of a legendary hard-living, hard-lovin', hard-drinkin', and hard-druggin' rockstar who, in his later years, develops something of a cult following. Literally. His son Thom, a conservative minister with some possible moral issues of his own, is called on to the tour by a mysterious phone call and finds himself once again thrust into his estranged father's chaotic world of tour busses, dive-bar shows, and... snake-handlers?


In this episode, host Eric Fritzius sits down with Davis for an interview about the novel, as recorded during the Lewisburg Literary Festival on August 8, 2015.

In honor of the recent passing of poet Miles Dean, we present an encore of Episode 41 in which he and his poetry are featured.

Miles Dean was not only a WV Writers member, and regular contributor to this podcast, but he was a prolific poet and one of the driving forces for the Raleigh County Library Writers Group. In addition to being a multiple winner of the writers’ wall and people’s choice competitions at the WV Writers Summer Conference, Miles published three collections of his poetry, the most recent of which, New River Reflections, debuted in January.

This recorded live reading comes from the September 16th Literary Tea session at the Greenbrier Valley Theatre in Lewisburg. WV Writers' featured reader is Miles Dean, won honorable mention in the Humor Category of the 2010 WVW Annual Writing Contest as well as voted the 1st place winner in poetry for the Writers Wall at the 2010 Summer Conference.

Find other podcasts featuring Miles Dean at this link...
http://podcast.wvwriters.org/search/label/Miles%20Dean

Only a month late in posting this episode, this is the final prose recording from the 2014 Literary Tea series at the Greenbrier Valley Theatre in Lewisburg. It features Rachel Garringer, the 2nd place winner of our 2014 Emerging Writers Prose category.

This recorded live reading comes from the October 13, 2014 Literary Tea session at the Greenbrier Valley Theatre in Lewisburg.

We also mourn the loss of WV Writers member and podcast contributor Miles Dean, who passed on April 1. You can hear other podcasts featuring Miles at http://podcast.wvwriters.org/search/label/Miles%20Dean

To help promote our annual writing contest, this year's Literary Tea readings featured winners from the 2014 WVW Annual Writing Contest. The featured reader for this Tea is Janet Lilly, who won third place in the Writers Wall competition at the 2014 WV Writers Summer Conference.

This recorded live reading comes from the October 6, 2014 Literary Tea session at the Greenbrier Valley Theatre in Lewisburg.