AWP23—Neema Avashia

Audio Block Double-click here to upload or link to a .mp3. Learn more Neema Avaisha is an author and a public school civics and history teacher in Boston. She was born and raised in southern West Virginia to Indian immigrant parents. Her first book, Another Appalachia: Coming up Queer and Indian in a Mountain Town , explores her early life and development in Appalachia and was published with West Virginia University Press. It was a finalist for the 2022 New England Book Award and won for Book Riot’s 2022 Best LGBTQ+ Memoir. In this episode, we talk about Avashia’s unique position as writer of a queer memoir that depicts one person’s experience and the clear understanding that she’s not a representative for all of queer Appalachia. Given all that, she says was still surprised at the “emotionally resonant” reception she received. We discuss Avashia’s self-given imperative to reinject nuance and depth into the existing narrative and sociopolitical climate. She sets herself the goal of continuously asking “why?” throughout her work and aims to create a relationship with her reader that allows space for exploration and discourages a rush for easy answers. We got to chat about her unconventional route to publication with WVU (hooray for indies!), what book tour for a memoir is like when your audience seemingly already knows your personal life, and the joy of finding a publisher with shared geographic roots. Check out her book and the various outlets for which she rights about education, LGBTQ and BIPOC issues, and motherhood. Honorable Mentions: Spoken Traditions of Appalachia , recorded reading with Avashia Avashia’s reporting on LGBTQ rights and motherhood for WBUR, where she is a Cognoscenti contributor Audio by Bloomsday Literary in partnership with the official 2023 AWP Conference & Bookfair

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AWP23—Neema Avashia is an episode from F***ing Shakespeare by Kate Martin Williams.

This episode is 00:24:31 long.

This episode was published on Jan 9, 2024.

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