Valerie Nieman
Valerie Nieman's latest, In the Lonely Backwater, a YA/crossover suspense novel in the Southern gothic tradition, is being published by Regal House/Fitzroy Books in 2022. To the Bones, her folk horror/thriller about coal country, was published by West Virginia University Press and was a finalist for the 2020 Manly Wade Wellman Award, joining Blood Clay (Eric Hoffer Award) and two other novels. She has also published a short fiction collection and three poetry collections, most recently, Leopard Lady: A Life in Verse from Press 53, which was runner-up for the Brockman-Campbell Prize. She has published widely in journals and anthologies, and has held state and NEA creative writing fellowships. A native of western New York, Nieman holds degrees from WVU and Queens University of Charlotte, and was a reporter and farmer in West Virginia before moving to North Carolina, where she worked as an editor and as a creative writing professor at NC A&T State University. Her activities include hiking and gardening.
Works

In the Lonely Backwater
Seventeen-year-old Maggie Warshauer wants is to leave her stifled life in Filliyaw Creek behind and head to college. An outsider at school and uncertain of her own sexual identity, Maggie longs to start again somewhere new. Inspired by a long-dead biologist's journals, scientific-minded Maggie spends her days sailing, exploring, and categorizing life around her. But when her beautiful cousin Charisse disappears on prom night and is found dead at the marina where Maggie lives, Maggie's plans begin to unravel. A mysterious stranger begins stalking her and a local detective on the case leaves her struggling to hold on to her secrets—her father's alcoholism, her mother's abandonment, a boyfriend who may or may not exist, and her own actions on prom night. As the detective gets closer to finding the truth, and Maggie's stalker is closing in, she is forced to comes to terms with the one person who might hold the answers—herself.
To the Bones
Leopard Lady: A Life in Verse
Hotel Worthy
Neena Gathering
Blood Clay
Wake Wake Wake
Fidelities
Survivors
Awards and Recognition
- National Endowment for the Arts creative writing fellowship
- North Carolina Arts Council poetry fellowship
- Kentucky Foundation for Women fellowship
- West Virginia Commission on the Arts fellowship
- Greg Grummer Prize in Poetry
- Elizabeth Simpson Smith prize in fiction
- Emma Bell Miles Prize for the Essay, Mountain Heritage Literary Festival, 2019
- Runner-up, Brockman-Campbell Book Prize, 2019
- Winner, Flyleaf Books annual poetry contest, 2017
- Winner, Seven Hills annual contest, YA fiction, 2017