“A novel for our time, a courageous and necessary book.” —Jennifer Haigh, author of Heat and Light In this stunning novel about judgment, courage, heartbreak, and change, author Silas House wrestles with the limits of belief and the infinite ways to love. In the aftermath of a flood that washes away much of a small Tennessee town, evangelical preacher Asher Sharp offers shelter to two gay men. In doing so, he starts to see his life anew—and risks losing everything: his wife, locked into her religious prejudices; his congregation, which shuns Asher after he delivers a passionate sermon in defense of tolerance; and his young son, Justin, caught in the middle of what turns into a bitter custody battle. With no way out but ahead, Asher takes Justin and flees to Key West, where he hopes to find his brother, Luke, whom he’d turned against years ago after Luke came out. And it is there, at the southernmost point of the country, that Asher and Justin discover a new way of thinking about the world, and a new way of understanding love. Southernmost is a tender and affecting book, a meditation on love and its consequences.

Kentucky Footnotes is Byron Crawford's third compilation of columns originally published by The Courier-Journal, where he served as the newspaper's Kentucky Columnist for nearly three decades. His first two books, Crawford's Journal, published in 1986, and Kentucky Stories, in 1994, have sold thousands of copies and remain popular among lovers of Kentucky lore. The San Francisco Chronicle once described Byron as The Courier-Journal's "muddy shoes reporter," and the late Charles Kuralt of CBS News proclaimed him "the best storyteller in Kentucky, if you count only the ones who tell the truth." In Kentucky Footnotes, readers will find a memorable collection of some of the stories that helped make this Hall of Fame journalist among the most widely-read writers at The Courier-Journal.

In the past decade, states across the nation have cut higher education spending per student by more than 15 percent. Kentucky has experienced some of the largest cuts in the country, leading many to claim that higher education is in a state of crisis. In spite of this turmoil, however, Kentucky's remarkable institutions of higher education stand more capable than ever to prepare new generations for the challenges and opportunities of their time. College for the Commonwealth: A Case for Higher Education in American Democracy illustrates how colleges and universities are the sustaining lifeblood of civil society and that when these vital institutions are underfunded, both the community and economy suffer. Michael T. Benson and Hal R. Boyd examine the historical origins of higher education in America and analyze the benefits of postsecondary education through the lens of Kentucky. Presented as a practical yet persuasive look at why America needs thoughtful reinvestment in its colleges and universities, this study details how helping students can help sustain a healthy, democratic social fabric while bolstering the modern economy. Gathering examples and offering solutions for postsecondary institutions, this work serves as a call to action and a roadmap for educators, administrators, and government officials.

Although linguists have traditionally viewed code-switching as the simultaneous use of two language varieties in a single context, scholars and teachers of English have appropriated the term to argue for teaching minority students to monitor their languages and dialects according to context. For advocates of code-switching, teaching students to distinguish between "home language" and "school language" offers a solution to the tug-of-war between standard and nonstandard Englishes. This volume arises from concerns that this kind of code-switching may actually facilitate the illiteracy and academic failure that educators seek to eliminate and can promote resistance to Standard English rather than encouraging its use. The original essays in this collection offer various perspectives on why code-meshing--blending minoritized dialects and world Englishes with Standard English--is a better pedagogical alternative than code-switching in the teaching of reading, writing, listening, speaking, and visually representing to diverse learners. This collection argues that code-meshing rather than code-switching leads to lucid, often dynamic prose by people whose first language is something other than English, as well as by native English speakers who speak and write with "accents" and those whose home language or neighborhood dialects are deemed "nonstandard." While acknowledging the difficulties in implementing a code-meshing pedagogy, editors Vershawn Ashanti Young and Aja Y. Martinez, along with a range of scholars from international and national literacy studies, English education, writing studies, sociolinguistics, and critical pedagogy, argue that all writers and speakers benefit when we demystify academic language and encourage students to explore the plurality of the English language in both unofficial and official spaces.

The second woman to earn a PhD from Columbia University—and the first from south of the Mason-Dixon Line to do so—Kentucky native Katherine Jackson French broke boundaries. Her research kick-started a resurgence of Appalachian music that continues to this day, but French's collection of traditional Kentucky ballads, which should have been her crowning scholarly achievement, never saw print. Academic rivalries, gender prejudice, and broken promises set against a thirty-year feud known as the Ballad Wars denied French her place in history and left the field to northerner Olive Dame Campbell and English folklorist Cecil Sharp, setting Appalachian studies on a foundation marred by stereotypes and misconceptions. Katherine Jackson French: Kentucky's Forgotten Ballad Collector tells the story of what might have been. Drawing on never-before-seen artifacts from French's granddaughter, Elizabeth DiSavino reclaims the life and legacy of this pivotal scholar by emphasizing the ways her work shaped and could reshape our conceptions about Appalachia. In contrast to the collection published by Campbell and Sharp, French's ballads elevate the status of women, give testimony to the complexity of balladry's ethnic roots and influences, and reveal more complex local dialects. Had French published her work in 1910, stereotypes about Appalachian ignorance, misogyny, and homogeneity may have diminished long ago. Included in this book is the first-ever publication of Katherine Jackson French's English-Scottish Ballads from the Hills of Kentucky.

“At the time it was first published in 1962, it framed such an urgent appeal to the American conscience that it actually prompted the creation of the Appalachian Regional Commission, an agency that has pumped millions of dollars into Appalachia. Caudill’s study begins in the violence of the Indian wars and ends in the economic despair of the 1950s and 1960s. Two hundred years ago, the Cumberland Plateau was a land of great promise. Its deep, twisting valleys contained rich bottomlands. The surrounding mountains were teeming with game and covered with valuable timber. The people who came into this land scratched out a living by farming, hunting, and making all the things they need-including whiskey. The quality of life in Appalachia declined during the Civil War and Appalachia remained “in a bad way” for the next century. By the 1940s, 50s, and 60s, Appalachia had become an island of poverty in a national sea of plenty and prosperity. Caudill’s book alerted the mainstream world to our problems and their causes. Since then the ARC has provided millions of dollars to strengthen the brick and mortar infrastructure of Appalachia and to help us recover from a century of economic problems that had greatly undermined our quality of life.”-Print ed.