The Wildcrafting Our Queerness ProjectMain MenuThe Wildcrafting Our Queerness ProjectMain PageArtExplore the art of queer AppalachiansTheory BlogSome major theories grounding queer Appalachian artQueer Appalachian Reading ListResources for further learningAboutLearn more about the project, oral histories, and the project's creator, Maxwell CloeMaxwell Cloed8840c620fc20aeee2b1f40a1e54c0e3967fa30d
1media/Neema+Avashia.jpg2022-04-14T18:04:27+00:00Neema Avashia7Writer and Educator from Kanawha Valley, West Virginiastructured_gallery2022-05-04T18:42:52+00:00Neema Avashia is a writer, educator, and social critic from the Kanawha Valley of West Virginia and currently living in Boston, Massachusetts. Largely working with genres of creative nonfiction and cultural criticism, Neema Avashia has constructed a body of work that plays with structure, memory, community, and identity. Much of her writing engages with her experiences with the Indian-Appalachian networks she grew up in, exploring the continually overlapping categories of race, gender, sexuality, foodways, ecology, local community, and social media. Her essays have been published in numerous media outlets and many have recently been collected into her first book, Another Appalachia: Coming Up Queer and Indian in a Mountain Place, published by West Virginia University Press. Alongside her writing, Neema Avashia has taught in Boston Public Schools for over 15 years.
Neema Avashia's body of work is available on her website.
Click the title of each piece to read, when available, the text and listen to an audio recording of Neema Avashia describing her inspiration and process behind the work of art.
12022-04-14T18:17:49+00:00Nine Forms of the Goddess4essay (2021) *audio available*plain2022-05-02T16:35:33+00:00essay (2021) originally published in Literary Hub
12022-04-14T18:24:16+00:00Chemical Bonds3essay (2020) *audio available*plain2022-05-02T16:39:20+00:00essay (2020) originally published in the Kenyon Review