Authors of ‘Another Appalachia’ to discuss work with CSUSB community

The President's Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Board will present a discussion with Neema Avashia and Elizabeth Catte, authors of “Another Appalachia: Coming Up Queer and Indian in a Mountain Place,” in-person in the John M. Pfau Library. room PL-4005, and on Zoom at 1 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 11.

With a vice presidential candidate’s memoir coloring some of the nation’s perceptions of the region, the authors of “Another Appalachia” aim to challenge and enrich the national conversation about an area of the country often stereotyped and misunderstood.

According to the publisher’s website, “‘Another Appalachia’ examines both the roots and the resonance of Avashia’s identity as a queer desi Appalachian woman, while encouraging readers to envision more complex versions of both Appalachia and the nation as a whole. With lyric and narrative explorations of foodways, religion, sports, standards of beauty, social media, gun culture, and more, ‘Another Appalachia’ mixes nostalgia and humor, sadness and sweetness, personal reflection and universal questions.”

Avashia was born and raised in southern West Virginia to parents who immigrated to the United States. She has been a middle school Civics teacher in the Boston Public Schools since 2003. Her essays have appeared in the Bitter Southerner, Catapult, Kenyon Review Online, and elsewhere. “Another Appalachia,” published in 2022, was a 2023 Lambda Literary Award Finalist (Lesbian Memoir/Biography), named the BEST LGBTQ+ MEMOIR of 2022 by Book Riot, also was a New York Public Library Best Book of 2022, and was a Weatherford Award finalist, nonfiction.

Catte lives in Virginia and has written two books, "What You Are Getting Wrong About Appalachia" (2018) and "Pure America: Eugenics and the Making of Modern Virginia" (2021). "Pure America" made the 2022 PEN America Literary Awards longlist for the PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction and was named named a Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2021. Her essays and commentary have appeared in The Washington Post, The Guardian, the Nation, on NPR, and more. She runs Passel, an applied history consulting firm, with her partner Josh, using history to solve real-world problems in Appalachia and the Mid-Atlantic. Catte holds a Ph.D. in public history and is a member of the National Writers Union, the Authors Guild, and a board member of the Appalachian African-American Cultural Center in Pennington Gap, Va. 

This event is made possible by the President's Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Board, the Pfau Library, the Faculty Center for Excellence, and the CSUSB Department of History.

For more information, contact Jeremy Murray at jmurray@csusb.edu.