Another Appalachia: Coming Up Queer and Indian in a Mountain Place

2023 Lambda Literary Award Finalist, Lesbian Memoir/Biography Named the BEST LGBTQ+ MEMOIR of 2022 by Book Riot Named a New York Public Library Best Book of 2022 Weatherford Award finalist, nonfiction Commands your attention from the first page to the last word. Morgan Jerkins Im glad this memoir exists . . . and Im especially glad its so good. Vauhini Vara, New York Magazine When Neema Avashia tells people where shes from, their response is nearly always a disbelieving There are Indian people in West Virginia? A queer Asian American teacher and writer, Avashia fits few Appalachian stereotypes. But the lessons she learned in childhood about race and class, gender and sexuality continue to inform the way she moves through the world today: how she loves, how she teaches, how she advocates, how she struggles. Another Appalachia examines both the roots and the resonance of Avashias 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.