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Berea College

Weatherford Awards honor books deemed as best illuminating the challenges, personalities, and unique qualities of the Appalachian South. Granted by Berea College and the Appalachian Studies Association for 50 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., Berea College’s sixth president.  The poetry award was established in 2010 to honor the life and work of Dr. Grace Toney Edwards, former Director of the Appalachian Regional Studies Center at Radford University.

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<li>1970 – Ben A. Franklin of the New York Times for his series of articles on Appalachia</li>
<li>1971 – David H. Looff – Appalachia’s Children</li>
<li>1972 – Eliot Wigginton and students of Rabun Gap – Nacoochee School – The Foxfire Book</li>
<li>1973 – Barry Bingham, Jr., of the Louisville Courier – Journal for thorough, persistent and influential reporting on Appalachia.</li>
<li>1974 – No award given</li>
<li>1975 – Brian Woolley and Ford Reid – We Be Here When the Morning Comes</li>
<li>1976 – Kai T. Erikson – Everything in Its Path</li>
<li>1977 – Gurney Norman – Kinfolks</li>
<li>1977 – Laurel Shackelford and Bill Weinberg – Our Appalachia</li>
<li>1978 – John W. Hevener – Which Side Are You On?</li>
<li>1978 – Henry D. Shapiro – Appalachia On Our Mind</li>
<li>1979 – Thomas J. Schoenbaum – The New River Controversy</li>
<li>1980 – John Gaventa – Power and Powerlessness: Quiescence and Rebellion in an Appalachian Valley</li>
<li>1981 – David Corbin – Life, Work, and Rebellion in the Coal Fields</li>
<li>1982 – Ronald Eller – Miners, Millhands, and Mountaineers</li>
<li>1983 – John Egerton – Generations</li>
<li>1984 – John Ehle – Last One Home</li>
<li>1985 – Eliot Wigginton – Sometimes a Shining Moment</li>
<li>1986 – Martin Cherniack – The Hawk’s Nest Incident</li>
<li>1987 – Denise Giardina – Storming Heaven</li>
<li>1987 – Rodger Cunningham – Apples on the Flood: The Southern Mountain Experience</li>
<li>1988 – Lee Smith – Fair and Tender Ladies</li>
<li>1989 – John Inscoe – Mountain Masters, Slavery, and the Sectional Crisis in Western North Carolina</li>
<li>1990 – Helen Lewis and Susanna O’Donnell – Remembering Our Past, Building Our Future</li>
<li>1991 – Crandall A. Shifflett – Coal Towns: Life, Work, and Culture in Company Towns of Southern Appalachia, 1880-1960</li>
<li>1992 – Denise Giardina – The Unquiet Earth</li>
<li>1993 – No award given</li>
<li>1994 – Henry Louis Gates, Jr. – Colored People: A Memoir</li>
<li>1995 – Deborah Vansau McCauley – Appalachian Mountain Religion: A History</li>
<li>1996 – Wilma A. Dunaway – The First American Frontier: Transition to Capitalism in Southern Appalachia, 1700-1860</li>
<li>1997 – Charles Frazier – Cold Mountain</li>
<li>1998 – Homer Hickam, Jr. – Rocket Boys: A Memoir</li>
<li>1999 – Loyal Jones – Faith and Meaning in the Southern Uplands</li>
<li>2000 – Dwight B. Billings and Kathleen M. Blee – The Road to Poverty: the Making of Wealth and Hardship in Appalachia</li>
<li>2001 – John O’Brien – At Home in the Heart of Appalachia</li>
<li>2002 – John A. Williams – Appalachia</li>
<li>2003 – Non-Fiction – Wilma A. Dunaway – Slavery in the American Mountain South</li>
<li>2003 – Fiction and Poetry – Gretchen Moran Laskas – The Midwife’s Tale</li>
<li>2004 – Non-Fiction – Michael Montgomery – Dictionary of Smoky Mountain English</li>
<li>2004 – Fiction and Poetry – Ron Rash – Saints at the River</li>
<li>2005 – Non-Fiction – Sharon Hatfield – Never Seen the Moon: The Trials of Edith Maxwell</li>
<li>2005 – Fiction and Poetry – Darnell Arnoult – What Travels With Us: Poems</li>
<li>2006 – Non-Fiction – Rudy Abramson and Jean Haskell, Editors – The Encyclopedia of Appalachia</li>
<li>2006 – Fiction and Poetry – Dot Jackson, John F. Blair Publisher – Refuge</li>
<li>2007 – Non-Fiction – James J. Lorence – A Hard Journey: The Life of Don West</li>
<li>2007 – Fiction and Poetry – Ann Pancake – Strange as this Weather Has Been</li>
<li>2008 – Fiction and Poetry – Ron Rash, Serena</li>
<li>2008 – Nonfiction – Ronald D Eller, Uneven Ground: Appalachia since 1945.</li>
<li>2009 – Nonfiction – Chris Green, The Social Life of Poetry (Palgrave Macmillan)</li>
<li>2009 – Fiction and Poetry – C.E. Morgan, All the Living (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux)</li>
<li>2010 – Nonfiction – Alessandro Portelli, They Say in Harlan County</li>
<li>2010 – Fiction – Amy Greene, Bloodroot</li>
<li>2010 – Poetry – Lisa J. Parker, this gone place</li>
<li>2011 – Nonfiction – Emily Satterwhite, Dear Appalachia: Readers, Identity, and Popular Fiction since 1978</li>
<li>2011 – Fiction – Charles Frazier, Night Woods</li>
<li>2011 – Poetry – Jesse Graves, Tennessee Landscape with Blighted Pine</li>
<li>2012 – Nonfiction – Kathryn Newfont, Blue Ridge Commons</li>
<li>2012 – Fiction – Barbara Kingsolver, Flight Behavior</li>
<li>2012 – Poetry – Richard Hague, During the Recent Extinctions</li>
<li>2013 – Nonfiction – T.R.C Hutton, Bloody Breathitt: Politics and Violence in the Appalachian South</li>
<li>2013 – Fiction – Karen Spears Zacharias, Mother of Rain</li>
<li>2013 – Poetry – Ron Houchin, The Man Who Saws Us in Half</li>
<li>2014 – Nonfiction –  Susan Eike Spalding, Appalachian Dance: Creativity and Continuity in Six Communities</li>
<li>2014 – Fiction – Marie Manilla, The Patron Saint of Ugly</li>
<li>2014 – Poetry – Jesse Graves, Basin Ghosts</li>
<li>2015 – Nonfiction – Chad Berry, Phillip J. Obermiller, and Shaunna L. Scott, Editors, Studying Appalachian Studies: Making the Path by Walking</li>
<li>2015 – Fiction – Robert Gipe, Trampoline</li>
<li>2015 – Poetry – Nickole Brown, Fanny Says</li>
<li>2016 – Nonfiction – Steven E. Nash, Reconstruction’s Ragged Edge: The Politics of Postwar Life in the Southern Mountains</li>
<li>2016 – Fiction – Crystal Wilkinson, The Birds of Opulence</li>
<li>2016 – Poetry – Marc Harshman, Believe What You Can</li>
<li>2017  – Nonfiction – Carol Boggess, James Still: A Life </li>
<li>2017 – Fiction – Wiley Cash, The Last Ballad</li>
<li>2017  – Poetry – Pauletta Hansel, Palindrome</li>
<li>2018 – Nonfiction – Michael Clay Carey, The News Untold</li>
<li>2018 – Fiction – Silas House, Southernmost</li>
<li>2018 – Poetry – Sarah McCartt-Jackson, Stonelight</li>
<li>2019 – Nonfiction – Meredith McCarroll and Anthony Harkins, Appalachian Reckoning</li>
<li>2019 – Fiction – Michael Croley, Any Other Place</li>
<li>2019 – Poetry – Rose McLarney – Forage</li>
<li>2020 – Nonfiction – Eric Luke Lassiter, Brian A. Hoey, and Elizabeth Campbell, I’m Afraid of That Water: A Collaborative Ethnography of a West Virginia Water Crisis</li>
<li>2020 – Fiction – Carter Sickels, The Prettiest Star</li>
<li>2020 – Poetry – Matthew Wimberley , All the Great Territories</li>
<li>2021 &#8211; Fiction: Jocelyn Johnson, My Monticello</li>
<li>2021 &#8211; Poetry: Marianne Worthington, The Girl Singer</li>
<li>2021 &#8211; Non-Fiction: William H. Turner, The Harlan Renaissance: Stories of Black Lives in Appalachian Coal Towns</li>
<li>2022 &#8211; Fiction: Barbara Kingsolver, Demon Copperhead</li>
<li>2022 &#8211; Poetry: Annie Woodford, Where You Come From is Gone </li>
<li>2022 &#8211; Nonfiction: Luke Manget, Ginseng Diggers</li>
<li>2023 &#8211; Fiction: Monic Ductan, Daughters of Muscadine: Stories, </li>
<li>2023 &#8211; Poetry: Bill King, Bloodroot and Michael Garrigan, River, Amen</li>
<li>2023 &#8211; Nonfiction: Erica Abrams Locklear, Appalachia on the Table: Representing Mountain Food &amp; People</li>
<li>2024 &#8211; Fiction: Karen Spears Zacharias, No Perfect Mothers and Taylor Brown, Rednecks</li>
<li>2024 &#8211; Poetry: Raye Hendrix, What Good is Heaven</li>
<li>2024 &#8211; Nonfiction: Connie Banta, Kristin Devault-Juelfs, Destinee Harper, Katy Ryan, and Ellen Skirvin, This Book is Free and Yours to Keep: Notes from the Appalachian Prison Book Project 
</li>
<li>2025 &#8211; Fiction: Wes Browne, They All Fall the Same</li>
<li>2025 &#8211; Poetry: Hilda Downer, Had I a Dove: Appalachian Poets on the Helene Flood</li>
<li>2025 &#8211; Nonfiction: Denali Sai Nalamalapu, Holler: A Graphic Memoir of Rural Resistance </li>
</ul>

Past Winners

The Weatherford Committee may create a special Weatherford Award to honor another work or body of work that makes an outstanding contribution to the understanding of Appalachian people.
<ul>
<li>1972 – Robert Coles, M.D.</li>
<li>1973 – Wilma Dykeman</li>
<li>1975 – Jesse Stuart</li>
<li>1976 – Harry Caudill</li>
<li>1977 – James Still</li>
<li>1978 – Harriette Simpson Arnow</li>
<li>1979 – Cratis Williams</li>
<li>1985 – Albert Stewart – Certificate of Achievement</li>
<li>1988 – Alfred Perrin</li>
<li>1996 – Loyal Jones</li>
<li>1999 – Sidney Saylor Farr</li>
<li>1999 – Jerry W. Williamson</li>
<li>2015 – Jim Wayne Miller in recognition of Every Leaf a Mirror: A Jim Wayne Miller Reader,  edited by Morris Allen Grubbs and Mary Ellen Miller</li>
</ul>

Special Weatherford Award Winners

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We are pleased to announce this year’s winners of the Weatherford Awards! These are separated into 3 categories: fiction, nonfiction and poetry honoring books that “best illuminate the challenges, personalities, and unique qualities of the Appalachian South.”

They All Fall the Same by Wes Browne
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They All Fall the Same 

<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.hubcity.org/books/fiction/junah-at-the-end-of-the-world">Junah at the End of the World by Dan Leach</a></li>
</ul>

Finalists 

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<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.loblollypress.com/products/distant-relations">Distant Relations </a>by Cheryl Whitehead</li>
<li><a href="https://wvupressonline.com/Dispatch-from-the-Mountain-State">Dispatch From the Mountain State </a>by Marc Harshman</li>
<li><a href="https://blairpub.com/shop/p/all-these-ghosts">All These Ghosts </a>by Silas House</li>
</ul>

Had I a Dove: Appalachian Poets on the Helene Flood 

By Denali Sai Nalamalapu
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Holler: A Graphic Memoir of Rural Resistance 

<ul>
<li><a href="https://blairpub.com/shop/p/cipher">Cipher: Decoding My Ancestor&#8217;s Scandalous Secret Diaries</a>, by Jeremy Jones</li>
<li><a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/book/134509">Toward Just Transitions: Visions for Regenerative Communities in Appalachia </a>by Kathryn Engle and Shaunna L. Scott</li>
</ul>

Winners of the Weatherford Award for Best Books About Appalachia

Past Winners

Winners of 2025

Fiction Award

Poetry Award

Nonfiction Award