Today is publication day for These Dreaming Hills: Dark and Wondrous Tales from Appalachia, our new anthology of twelve speculative fiction stories, edited by Noah Ashley Blooms.
We’ve been waiting a long time to say that.
Through horror, fantasy, science fiction, folklore, magical realism, and the uncanny, these stories take us into Appalachian landscapes and communities that resist easy definition. There are strange transformations, impossible geographies, inherited powers, ecological upheaval, and encounters with forces both ancient and new.
The collection features stories by Amanda Gaines, Lesly-Marie Buer, Kelly Ward, Marina Favila, C. Christopher Mullins, Alisa Alering, Christopher Rowe, Elizabeth Kilcoyne, Nathan Ballingrud, Rod Anthony White, and Rachel Dockal.
Bringing together new and previously published work, These Dreaming Hills explores memory, inheritance, belonging, and the complicated relationship between people and place. Noah Ashley Bloom’s introduction considers how speculative fiction can help us see Appalachia beyond the stereotypes that have long defined it from the outside.
These stories are dark, strange, funny, frightening, and beautiful. We’re proud to share them with you.
Today, they belong to readers.
Get the book
These Dreaming Hills is available now directly from Appalachia Book Company.
Buying from Appalachia Book Company is one of the best ways to support our work—and helps us keep publishing Appalachian writers and stories.
You can also order the book through your local independent bookstore and through major online booksellers. Because the book is distributed through Ingram, bookstores can order it directly. If they need help, they can write hello@appalachiabook.co for assistance.
Celebrate with us in Berea
We’ll celebrate the publication of These Dreaming Hills on Friday, October 16 at 7 p.m. at the Berea Arts Council in Berea, Kentucky.
Editor Noah Ashley Blooms will be there to represent Appalachia Book Company and discuss the anthology with contributors Kelly Ward, Rachel Dockal and Alisa Alering.
Whimsy’s Books will be on hand to sell copies.
If you’re nearby, we hope you’ll join us.
How this book came to be
These Dreaming Hills is an especially important book for Appalachia Book Company. From the beginning, we knew we wanted to publish a collection of speculative fiction set in central Appalachia.
We want Appalachian writers to be able to write about the region’s history and its present, certainly—but also its imagined futures, its nightmares, its mysteries, and its impossible worlds.
This book was made possible in part by a $5,000 literary arts grant from South Arts, whose support allowed us to bring this collection into print. We’re also grateful for the support of the Snowy Owl Foundation.
And we’re grateful to Noah Ashley Blooms, who shaped this anthology as its editor; to our contributors for trusting us with their work; to everyone who helped design, produce, publicize, and champion the book; and to the readers who have been following the project as it made its way toward publication.
Thank you!