Winners of the Weatherford Awards for the best books about Appalachia in 2017 are The Last Ballad by Wiley Cash (fiction), Palindrome by Pauletta Hansel (poetry), and James Still: A Life by Carol Boggess (nonfiction).
The Weatherford Awards honor books that best illuminate the challenges, personalities, and unique qualities of the Appalachian South. Granted by Berea College and the Appalachian Studies Association for 47 years, the awards commemorate the life and achievements of W.D. Weatherford Sr., a pioneer and leading figure in Appalachian development, youth work and race relations, and his son, Willis D. Weatherford, Jr., who was Berea College’s sixth president (1967-84). Continue reading Weatherford Awards for Best Appalachian Books Announced →
Berea author, feminist and social activist, bell hooks, is one of four writers to be inducted into the 2018 Kentucky Writers Hall of Fame on Jan. 31 at the Lexington Carnegie Center.
Silas House, the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Chair of Appalachian Studies at Berea College, was recently inducted into the Fellowship of Southern Writers. The induction took place at a ceremony held in Chattanooga, Tennessee, during the SouthWord Festival—a biennial conference for the Southern Lit Alliance and the Fellowship of Southern Writers. 
Berea College welcomes Rev. Dr. Renita J. Weems, a biblical scholar, academic administrator, writer, ordained minister, and public intellectual who will be the convocation speaker on September 28th at 3 p.m., in Phelps Stokes Chapel. She is known nation-wide as a theologian whose learned perceptions into the Bible and the role of spirituality in everyday life has made her a well-respected speaker and author. 
Berea College welcomes the public and campus community to its weekly convocation this Thursday, September 21, 2017, featuring award-winning poet, playwright, performer, novelist and educator Ntozake Shange. In her presentation, Wild Beauty, Shange will explore the many contradictions people of color confront in their daily lives emotionally, psychologically and politically. Through music and language, Shange approaches her material with delicacy and brutal honesty, leaving the audience with a textured mosaic of what it means and how it feels to be a 21st century colored person who speaks English. This convocation is co-sponsored with Theatre. 
Berea College alumna C. E. Morgan ’02 has been named a finalist for the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, one of the most prestigious literary prizes in the nation. 
April 10, 2017 – Facebook Live stream starts at 3:30 p.m. EDT. 
Berea College welcomes the public and campus community to this week’s convocation featuring spiritual teacher and author Marianne Williamson. In this convocation, Williamson will call on Bereans to turn the passion that is in their hearts into a powerful force for social good. This Convocation is co-sponsored with Women’s and Gender Studies. 
In June, Jim Wayne Miller, ’58, was honored by Appalachian Heritage, the literary quarterly sponsored through the Loyal Jones Appalachian Center. Miller, a pioneer in Appalachian literature and studies, was former Kentucky poet laureate and the featured author of the Summer 2009 issue of Appalachian Heritage. 
