JSF Publishing

  • In her Introduction, Glennis Stuart Liles provides some historical background on Greenup and Greenup County and then she focuses on her parents and her family in “W-Hollow Holidays and Holiday Recipes." “My parents, Martha and Mitchell Stuart, married at Plum Grove (Greenup County) and went to house keeping in W-Hollow just over the hill from the town of Greenup. They lived there until they died in the early fifties. They, and their neighbors, grew their vegetables on the rocky hillsides, milked cows, and killed their own meat. Everyone was poor, but they did their best to make holidays special. The most important part of each holiday was the food.  It was served in the dining room, on a fancy tablecloth with cloth napkins and their best silverware and china. The recipes in this book are special to the people of W-Hollow. They have been used over and over on special occasions – some for more than one-hundred-fifty years.” HARDBACK VERSION By Glennis Stuart Liles
  • This boundary-crossing book views ballet through the eyes of 24 Appalachian women who began their ballet lessons in childhood. Combining research in dance with analysis of interviews with the women, the work highlights what ballet meant to girls who sought a more magical world than the one they occupied. Keen in insight and colorful in detail, the narrative includes experiences of renowned dancers, past and present—Maria Tallchief, Misty Copeland, and Wendy Whelan among others. Surprising notables, world heavyweight champion, Muhammad Ali, born in Louisville, Kentucky, and Olympic gold medalist in gymnastics, Mary Lou Retton, from Fairmont, West Virginia, make cameo appearances in the narrative too. An engaging story of why ballet was meaningful to girls from the hills and hollows of central Appalachia, Another World: Ballet Lessons from Appalachia recognizes vital intersections—children and their families, students and their teachers, local and global communities—in the development of talent. SOFTBACK VERSION By Edwina Pendarvis
  • The thirty-four stories in this collection, selected from Stuart’s 460 published stories, reveal the variety and range of his fictional world. Some reflect the excitement of growing up in Appalachia. Others portray the comedy and tragedy in the lives of the strong, rough-hewn characters of his world. Running through all of them, like a golden thread, is Stuart’s celebration of the land and its rhythms of life. SOFTBACK By Jesse Stuart
  • “Wit, Wisdom and Other Stuff” is a compilation of 125 commentaries. He is a former reporter for The Associated Press and for newspapers in Ironton, Ohio, Ashland, Ky. and Huntington, W.Va. Keith Kappes is a retired university vice president who returned to community journalism to be publisher of the Morehead News Group for six years. Two years before this book project, he wrote and published “The View from my Keyboard." SOFTBACK VERSION By Keith Kappes
  • Sale!
    8-Book Christmas Package

    $75.00 Sale Price ($125.00 Retail)

    I’ll Be Home for Christmas, by The Library of Congress True Christmas Stories From the Heart of Appalachia, compilation published by JSF in 2019 Appalachian Christmas Stories, JSF published Snow Day, by Billy Coffey The Christmas Quilt, by Thomas J. Davis The Beatinest Boy, by Jesse Stuart Missing Christmas, by Jack D. Ellis Christmas Day in the Morning, by Pearl S. Buck, illustrated by Mark Buehner
  • Sale!
    True Christmas Stories From the Heart of Appalachia SOFTBACK VERSION ~ FULL COLOR INTERIOR Appalachia Christmas Stories SOFTBACK
  • Sale!
    This book captures the spirit of Christmas in 43 true stories by 39 authors. Thirty-five of the stories are set in Kentucky and the others are from neighboring states. All of these powerful and well-written stories emanate from the heart of Appalachia, and many attach themselves to your heart. This is a great Christmas gift book! SOFTBACK VERSION FULL COLOR INTERIOR (You will receive 5 copies of this book for the price of 4)
  • Best known for his nonfiction work "Night Comes to the Cumberlands," Harry M. Caudill also wrote fiction, including “Dark Hills to Westward: The Saga of Jenny Wiley,” first published in 1969 and recently reprinted in a new softback edition by the Jesse Stuart Foundation. When Jenny was an old woman, a preacher had sat down with her and wrote out her captivity story. Although Jenny may have embellished it many times, it is the only first-hand account we have, and it’s the primary source for Caudill’s novel. Briefly, here is her story. Thomas and Jenny Wiley had pioneered land on Walker’s Creek in Bland County, Virginia. On October 1, 1789, while Thomas was away, a small band of Indians, seeking revenge for a recent defeat at the hands of white settlers, attacked the Wiley cabin and killed and scalped Jenny’s three older children and her brother. Jenny, seven months pregnant, was taken captive along with her baby son, Adam. SOFTBACK VERSION By Harry M. Caudill
  • Everything from gritty reality to the supernatural rears its head in Clement County: Tales of Mystery & Intrigue from Kentucky. The authors write of the fictional southeastern Kentucky county through an anthology drawn from their over 40 years of writing together. SOFTBACK VERSION By Hal Blythe and Charlie Sweet
  • This book captures the spirit of Christmas in 43 true stories by 39 authors. Thirty-five of the stories are set in Kentucky and the others are from neighboring states. All of these powerful and well-written stories emanate from the heart of Appalachia, and many attach themselves to your heart. This is a great Christmas gift book! SOFTBACK VERSION FULL COLOR INTERIOR
  • A Collection of essays, short stories, and poetry from writers, including Jesse Stuart, Billy C. Clark, James B. Goode, and Thomas D. Clark. SOFTBACK
  • Growing Up in the Last Small Town: A West Virginia Memoir is a humorous and poignant account of Bob Barnett, a bad student and undersized athlete coming of age in the 1950’s, but it is also the story of all of us who grew up in small towns across America between 1940 and 1960. It was a time of simple pleasures that included shedding winter coats on the first day of spring, playing baseball until dark, watching four-hour children’s matinees on Saturday, and breaking plates in the town dump, our favorite playground. It was a time when we wrote term papers, ate fish sandwiches at the Fireman’s Carnival, cheered our high school teams, and lived for soak hops and dances –a time when getting the right date for the prom was more important than the election of the president. The story is set in the unincorporated pottery town of Newell, West Virginia and captures the rhythm of life in small towns that we thought would never change. But change came quickly. Television became a staple of modern life in the 1950s offering Elvis, the evening news, and a vivid view of our changing world. School consolidations robbed the towns of their souls, supermarkets eliminated the need for corner grocery stores, and the closing of mills and factories brought an end to small towns as we knew them. The generation whose story is told in this book grew up in the last small town in America. SOFTBACK By Bob Barnett
  • The Civil War affected the daily lives of almost everyone in the Commonwealth of Kentucky, a slave holding state that chose not to secede from the United States. Here are the untold stories of lesser known combatants or the folks back home who suffered in so many ways from the ravages of war. Seventeen chapters range in topics from interviews with former slaves to an examination of Mary Todd Lincoln's family's military involvement in the war. SOFTBACK By Marshall Myers
  • Out of stock
    Border Wars of the Upper Ohio Valley is the story of the Trans-Allegheny movement in the quarter-century from 1769-1794. It embraces the area of the present United States from western Pennsylvania to the Mississippi, and from the Great Lakes southward into Tennessee. The story of this westward movement begins with the emigration of the Zane family from the South Branch of the Potomac River, from their home near Moorefield, in present Hardy County, West Virginia, to the mouth of Wheeling Creek in the panhandle of that state, and concludes with Anthony Wayne’s victory over the confederated Indian tribes at Fallen Timbers. William Hintzen’s book brings back the days of Daniel Boone, the Zane family (founders of Wheeling), Simon Kenton, Lewis Wetzel (Death Wind, as the Indians knew him), the 1777 siege of Fort Henry, the Girty brothers, Sam McCo9lloch, Betty Zane’s dash for gunpowder, the remarkable Wetzel family, Sam Brady, George Rogers Clark and Mad Anthony Wayne’s final victory at Fallen Timbers. By William Hintzen
  • In this family history, “Raft Tide and Railroad: How We Lived and Died — Collected Memories and Stories of an Appalachian Family and Its Seventh Son,” Appalachian author, poet, and editor Dr. Edwina Pendarvis, was guided by sage advice from a grandmother, Jet Johnson, known only to her through family stories and photographs. Not long before Johnson was murdered, she asked one of her sons to note the strength of a bundle of twigs – as opposed to an individual twig – and see it as a metaphor for family strength – a metaphor originated by an earlier Appalachian – the warrior Tecumseh. In “Raft Tide and Railroad,” the author has preserved her family’s history and recognized its strength through accounts that span seven generations of experiences in Virginia, Kentucky, and West Virginia from the early 1800s to the present. SOFTBACK VERSION By Edwina Pendarvis
  • In 1963, Harry M. Caudill published his now classic account of the reckless, deliberate despoliation of the Appalachian Plateau, Night Comes to the Cumberlands. Thirteen years later, in The Watches of the Night, Caudill continued the heartbreaking story of an incredibly rich land inhabited by a grindingly poor people whose problems, despite state and local aid and an unprecedented boom in coal, had worsened: the land was being stripped more rapidly than ever; the people’s traditional relationship with the land was being uprooted, and their old customs eliminated by standardization Both a narrative history and a polemic against greed and waste, The Watches of the Night hammers at “the profligacy growing out of the persistent myth of superabundance.” The author ponders an even darker future if the cycle of boom and bust is not broken. He writes: “Americans have never understood or respected the finely textured, little-hill terrain of the Cumberland Plateau.” Neither the farmers nor the miners who followed the early pioneers saw it as a place cherish. Through decades that have lengthened to nearly two centuries the land has fought back, sometimes with savage floods and always with persistent efforts to reforest. “But now times runs out and our “inexhaustible” resources have turned finite….The Kentucky Cumberlands are many things, but most of all they are a warning.” By Harry M. Caudill
  • Authors represented in Appalachian Love Stories include:
    • Jesse Stuart
    • Ancella R. Bickley
    • James M. Gifford
    • Jimmy Lowe
    • James B. Goode
    • Edwina Pendarvis
    • Laura Treacy Bentley
    • Bruce Radford Richey
    • Ina Everman
    • Danny Fulks
    • Loyal Jones
    • Billy C. Clark
    • Linda Scott DeRosier
    • Christina St. Clair
    • Alexandra Combs Hudson
    • Kate Larken
    • Barbara Smith
    • Carol Van Meter
    SOFTBACK
  • Jesse Stuart was a paradox. For a period of his life, Jesse slept with a loaded gun under his pillow, yet he also carried a typewriter with him wherever he went. He courted woman with mud on his boots and pistols on his hips, but he had wildflowers in his hands and envelops completely covered with chicken-scratched poems in his pockets. He was petty yet often kind, mean-spirited but truly helpful to beginning writers, clannish yet hospitable to visitors HARDBACK By James M. Gifford
  • Greenup County, bordering the Ohio River in northeastern Kentucky, is rich in history and culture. Settlers first arrived in the mid-1700s and carved farms from hardwood forests. Lucy Virgin Downs, the first white child born west of the Alleghenies, lived in Greenup County, as did Jesse Boone, brother of Kentucky icon Daniel Boone. The 20th century brought industrialization and economic diversification to the historically agricultural area. Ashland Oil, a Fortune 500 company, maintained corporate headquarters in Greenup County. Two steel mills, a large rail yard, an excellent hospital, and a number of surface mines also provided employment to many people who continued to work their family farms, too. This economic progress was mirrored in every aspect of country life as education, health care, and recreation all improved dramatically. Today Greenup County’s history is appreciated by both longtime residence and cultural tourists. James M. Gifford serves as chief executive and senior editor of the Jesse Stuart Foundation, a regional publishing house. Dr. Gifford’s coauthors, Anthony and Suzanna Stephens, are eastern Kentuckians. The authors gathered photographs from dozens of personal and library collections.
    SOFTBACK By James M. Gifford, Anthony and Suzanna Stephens
  • Patriots & Heroes: Eastern Kentucky Soldiers of WW II profiles the physical pain, and also the psychological and emotional stress suffered by a dozen of America's Citizen Soldiers in WW II. Their stories are representative of the courage, suffering, sacrifice and separation faced by the American GIs of that war. Included among these twelve are stories of POWs, KIAs, MIAs and many that returned home safely to become valuable, productive members of their community. The author uses interviews, letters, documents, and personal experiences to poignantly present their stories. HARDBACK By Jack D. Ellis
  • The people, the lore, even the sounds of eastern Kentucky come vividly to life in this affectionate story of a boy and his search dog. In the shadow of Sourwood Mountain, fourteen-year-old Aram Tate is absorbed in the sometimes painful process of growing up. His all-consuming passion is to own a hound dog of his very own, and his efforts to achieve this dream involve him in a series of amusing adventures which broaden his boy's-eye view of the world. Through his friendship with ne'er-do-well Eb ringtom, Aram Learns the ways of men as they never were described in books. Among the other colorful characters who contribute to the boy's education are Lighting and Napoleon, two imcomparably wily gamecocks; Thusla, Eb's great hound whose exploits can only be described as apocryphal; and Rile Feder and his dog, the bluetick Tweedle, who fears neither coon nor fox. SOFTBACK By Billy C. Clark  
  • Mark My Words: Tales of Brandon Webb, O.J. Mayo, and Other Sports Legends of Northeastern Kentucky SOFTBACK By Mark Maynard
    • Song of the River
    • The Trail of the Hunter's Horn
    • Riverboy
    • Useless Dog
    • The Mooneyed Hound
    By Billy C. Clark
  • Boston University, the site of the world’s finest repository of 20th Century literature, praises Billy C. Clark as “one of the South’s most distinguished writers.” In this fascinating and highly readable book, Clark, founder and editor of Virginia Writing, writes of his own astonishingly primitive childhood in an Appalachian river town, Catlettsburg, Kentucky, at the junction of the Big Sandy and the Ohio Rivers. Billy C. Clark was a member of a sprawling, ragged family. His father was an intelligent, fiddle-playing shoemaker with little formal education. His mother often took in washing to help provide food for the family. Billy grew up in a derelict house, “The Leaning Tower,” on the banks of the Ohio. Always hungry, often dirty, and without sufficient clothing, he led an adventurous life on the two rivers, swimming, fishing, and salvaging flotsam from the frequent floods. He set trout lines for fish and trap lines for mink and muskrats, and he walked fourteen miles before school to clear his traps. He learned laughter from his magnificent mother and wisdom from his father, who taught him that “poor folks have a long row to hoe….” Billy was the only one of his family to seek an education, and through his traps, his river salvage, and odd jobs, he earned money to put himself through school. The book ends with a powerful account of his parents’ pride at his graduation. Time Magazine said that this book is “as authentically American as Huckleberry Finn.” It is a touching account of a boy and two rivers. It is a must for public and school libraries, or anyone interested in Appalachian history or literature. By Billy C. Clark
  • Kentucky’s history is an important part of American development because the state lay directly in the path of the great westward movement. It was in Kentucky that the early adjustments to the rigors of frontier life were made. Along the Kentucky River, Daniel Boone and a small band of settlers repulsed British and Indian thrusts to guard the back door of the struggling young nation during the Revolution. Under George Rogers Clark, the Kentuckians even carried the fight to British and Indian concentrations along the Ohio. HARDBACK By Thomas D. Clark
  • The late Harry M. Caudill saw the land and people of Appalachia with an unflinching eye. His classic, Night Comes to the Cumberlands, follows the long road traveled by the Southern mountaineer. By Harry M. Caudill
  • The protagonist of this novel is heroic, majestic, a born leader, a devoted husband and proud father. He is destined to be long remembered by whoever reads about his life. He is a great auk. By Allan Eckert
  • Blue Jacket’s popularity inspired Allan W. Eckert to write Johnny Logan, the true story of a Shawnee who became a U.S. spy, and it was first published in 1983. Logan was one of the greatest Indian friends the white man ever had on the American frontier; and he was the only Native American buried with full United States military honors. By Allan Eckert
  • Out of stock
    This young adult historical novel is based on an exciting and little known incident in the life of the famed Kentucky frontiersman Daniel Boone when, after being captured by Shawnee Indians and subsequently adopted into their tribe, he then escapes and returns to Boonesboro, only to find himself charged with treason and court-martialed. In a brilliant display of ability, Boone defends himself at the trial and gradually the truth about what really happened emerges. A fascinating glimpse of Kentucky's pioneer period as well as a penetrating look at frontier courtroom justice. By Allan Eckert
  • Though there are many biographies of the great Shawnee chief Tecumseh (1768-1813), this effort by historical novelist Allan W. Eckert may spark new interest — and controversy — with its "hidden dialogue" technique. After more than 25 years of research, the author felt free to recreate Tecumseh's conversations and thoughts in what proves to be an entertaining blend of fact and fiction. The orator and organizer's life was shaped by his tribe's tragic confrontation with westward-moving whites, who encroached on Native American lands along the Ohio River valley. His long struggle against this dispossession led Tecumseh to create a historic confederacy of tribes, but this crowning achievement was destroyed by his own brother at Tippecanoe in 1811. SOFTCOVER By Allan Eckert
  • This nature novel, by following the hatching and lifetime experiences of the last know wild passenger pigeon, chronicles the life, natural history, and ultimate extinction of this species which was once the most abundant bird species in North America. The last wild bird was killed in 1900; the last captive bird died in 1914. By Allan Eckert  
  • In the year 1771, a white boy named Marmaduke Van Swearingen was captured by the Shawnee Indians in what is now West Virginia, but was then the edge of the American frontier. Impressed with his bravery, he was not killed but instead was taken to Ohio where he was adopted into the tribe and given the name Blue Jacket, from the blue shirt he was wearing at the time of his capture. Eckert has taken all of the known facts of Blue Jacket's life and has woven them into a narrative of compelling interest, with a very different perspective on the way America was settled. The reader will learn what life was really like on the dangerous frontier wilderness that was West Virginia, Kentucky and Ohio before the Revolutionary War. By Allan Eckert
  • Previously unpublished, this is Stuart's first novel, written in 1932 and covering the frustrating, tumultuous year he spent as superintendent of the Greenup County, Ky., schools before deciding to return to Nashville to devote himself to writing. By Jesse Stuart

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