Calendar of Events

Union Ave Books and Choice Health Network Harm Reduction welcome Robert Gipe to present his newest novel Pop. Robert will be joined in conversation by Lesly-Marie Buer, author of RX Appalachia. This free virtual event takes place on Thursday, April 8th @ 6:30pm (Eastern) on Zoom. You MUST register at the following link to attend.

Register Here: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZEtfuCorz0uG9XE5_cbAfV0ZagaeeTf3OcQ

In the tradition of Gipe’s first two novels, Pop’s Appalachia is full of clear-eyed, caring, creative, and complicated people struggling to hang on to what is best about their world and reject what is not. Their adventures reflect an Appalachia that is overrun by outside commentators looking for stories to tell about the region—sometimes positive, sometimes negative, but almost always oversimplified.

Robert Gipe lives and works in Harlan County, Kentucky. Pop is his third Ohio University Press novel. His first, Trampoline, won the 2016 Weatherford Award for Appalachian novel of the year. His second novel, Weedeater, was a Weatherford finalist. For the past thirty years he has worked in arts-based organizing and is the founding coproducer of the Higher Ground community performance series. He has contributed to numerous journals and anthologies, is a playwright, and is currently a script consultant on a forthcoming television show based on Beth Macy’s Dopesick.

Lesly-Marie Buer is an activist and public health practitioner at Positively Living/Choice Health Network in Knoxville, Tennessee. Her work on substance use and harm reduction has appeared insuch publications as Boston Review, the Journal of Appalachian Studies, and North American Dialogue. Her book, RX Appalachia: Treatment and Survival in Rural Kentucky, focuses on women's encounters with substance use treatment in rural Central Appalachia.