A Study Guide for Book Clubs, Writing Groups, Literature Classes
About the Author Valerie Nieman was born in western New York
State, homesteaded a hill farm in West Virginia, and now lives
and teaches in the Piedmont region of North Carolina. She had
worked for three decades as a journalist while honing her skills
as a poet and fiction writer. Her first two novels, Neena
Gathering and Survivors, were set in West Virginia, as were most
of the stories in the collection Fidelities, from West Virginia
University Press. She is also the author of a poetry collection,
Wake Wake Wake. She has received an NEA creative writing
fellowship, two Elizabeth Simpson Smith prizes in fiction, and
the Greg Grummer Prize in poetry. A graduate of West Virginia
University and the M.F.A. program at Queens University of
Charlotte, she teaches writing at NC A&T State University and is
the poetry editor for Prime Number magazine. Approaches to
Teaching A Plan for Reading While You Read Keep a reading
journal with your thoughts and obs