Valerie Nieman

Valerie Nieman has been a newspaper reporter, farmer, sailor, teacher, and always a walker.
Her latest, In the Lonely Backwater, a YA/crossover suspense novel in the Southern gothic tradition, will be published by Regal House/Fitzroy Books in May. To the Bones, her genre-bending folk horror/thriller about coal country, was a finalist for the 2020 Manly Wade Wellman Award. She has also published three earlier novels, a short fiction collection, and three poetry collections, most recently, Leopard Lady: A Life in Verse from Press 53. She has published widely in journals and anthologies, and has held state and NEA creative writing fellowships. A native of western New York, she holds degrees from West Virginia University and Queens University of Charlotte and is professor emeritus at NC A&T State University.