A home for Appalachia's storytellers —
from the top of Pennsylvania to the Blue Ridge and Smoky Mountains.
The Appalachian Authors Alliance connects the whole literary life of these mountains: the authors and poets, yes — and the independent bookstores, the libraries, the illustrators, the small presses, and the people who keep the porch lights on for all of them. Digital-first, pan-regional, and radically welcoming.
Everybody's welcome on the porch.
From our authors' shelves
Launching with something real: 189 verified independent bookstores
We didn't start with a manifesto. We started with fieldwork — every independent bookstore in the Appalachian footprint, checked one by one: open, independent, and worth the drive. Eight states, from Pittsburgh's neighborhood shops to the mountain towns of North Carolina. No chains, and no ghosts of stores that closed years ago.
For readers
Find the real bookstores of Appalachia — the ones with a shop dog, a local-authors shelf, and somebody who remembers what you bought last time.
For writers
These stores are where Appalachian books meet Appalachian readers. Know your region's rooms before you ask for a signing table.
For the stores
Your listing is free, forever. It's our thanks for keeping literature alive in the mountains. Claim or correct your listing.
A land of storytellers
Appalachia has always told its own stories — on porches and in church basements, in coal-camp ballads and ghost tales gathered by scholars like Ruth Ann Musick, in Affrilachian poetry and Cherokee tradition, and in every novel that got the mountains right. This alliance exists to celebrate all of it, without stereotype and without gatekeeping.
And yes — our home base is Point Pleasant, West Virginia, where the mountains meet the Ohio River. If a certain winged, red-eyed neighbor nudges a few more people toward the region's bookshelves, we'll take it. Story is the heritage; Mothman is just the invitation.
What's coming
The Journal
Regular writing about Appalachian literary life — the bookstores, the festivals, the writers, the history. First stories soon.
The Events Calendar
Festivals, readings, signings, and book fairs across the region — dates verified before we publish them. See the plan.
Membership
Full member profiles for the region's creators at a community price. Free listings first — membership when it's ready, not before. Read more.