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True to her roots, Appalachia has been a major focus of Roberta Teague Herrin’s teachings and research. She has taught courses in Appalachian literature and has authored writings in several different publications.

Among those writings are articles she did for the Now & Then Magazine, a publication of ETSU’s Center for Appalachian Studies and Services (CASS). Herrin served as director of the center from 2004 to 2016.

Recently, she compiled selected essays from the magazine into a small booklet, titled “Appalachian Homilies,” which was published by Wipf and Stock Publishers.

The magazine is now an online publication and has a new title “Appalachian Places: Stories from the Highlands.”

Essays in the book are arranged in chronological order of publication and provide a snapshot in time. Herrin noted in the foreword of the book that “people mentioned in the essays are no longer affiliated with the Center. Sadly, some are deceased, such as my mountain neighbors: Myrtle and Willard Elliott, Terry Hyder, and Dean Smith. Preserving the original ‘time’ of the essays keeps my neighbors alive to me. It is a way to honor them.”

Herrin dedicates the book to all the people who supported the magazine for 32 years and fought to keep it alive through budget cuts, rising printing costs, and administrative changes. 

Some of the stories have to do with her native Ripshin Community, which she still calls home. It is this rural aspect of Herrin’s life that helped bring the Appalachian culture to life while she was director of ETSU’s Center for Appalachian Studies and Services.
Herrin earned both her B.S. and M.A. in English at ETSU and went on to earn her Ph.D. in English from the University of Tennessee. Later she returned to ETSU as a professor of English

true to her roots, Appalachia has been a major focus of her teaching and research. She has taught courses in Appalachian literature, Appalachian women authors and Appalachian children’s literature – a field in which she is currently working on a bibliography to be published by McFarland Press. In addition, she has given presentations for professional and community organizations and various other groups, and she has authored writings in several different publications.

It was her passion for Appalachia that eventually led her to take on the role of director of ETSU’s Center for Appalachian Studies and Services (CASS), a Tennessee Center of Excellence.

Now retired, Herris spends most of her day at her family’s Ripshin Mountain home. Some of the musings in her new book hint at her own Appalachian upbringing and community as in the chapters titled “The Mountain Famer and Milton” and “The Spirit of Humanity in Appalachia.”

“Appalachian Homilies” is not Herrin’s first book. She is the editor of Appalachian Children’s Literature, and An Annotated Bibliography and co-author of Sylvia Hatchell, The Life and Basketball Legacy. 

In 2011, she won the ETSU Distinguished Faculty Service Award. She retired from ETSU in 2016 and was awarded Faculty Emerita status.

Books can be ordered from Wipf and Stock Publishers, Kindle Store, Barnes & Noble among others.