“Bald Eagle Mountain is fringed with mist hovering over the trees like furry eyebrows…”

-Gloria Heffernan, “Sunrise on a Back Porch in Pennsylvania”

A regional anthology, in the right hands, is a box of fine chocolates, and as welcome a holiday gift. The words will take you back to beloved memories or will show you another view of places you thought you knew. This year, two samplers of Pennsylvania’s creative writing have been released, generating new audiences and exposing long-time readers of regional work to new voices in unusual places. Keystone Poetry sings the song of Pennsylvania large and small, in all the dialects of a patchwork quilt state, while Rivers, Ridges, and Valleys focuses on that land often described—mistakenly—as an empty, one-note “T” stretching between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh and covering the entire northern half of the state. The voices are varied and are tended to lovingly by veteran writers and editors of poetry and creative nonfiction in the Commonwealth. Jerry Wemple is an editor for both anthologies, along with Marjorie Maddox Hafer for Keystone Poetry and with Anna Dyer Stuart for Rivers, Ridges, and Valleys.

Two anthologies in the same year seem a daunting task for Jerry, who is a full-time professor at Commonwealth University-Bloomsburg. While agreeing it was at times almost too much, and the process with each was different—the poetry tome is a twentieth anniversary edition—Jerry thinks the two books have many connections. “It’s an odd thing—lots of poets also write creative nonfiction,” he says. “The use of language to create images in both ties the two genres together.”

“The poetry anthology started as an idea five years ago,” explains Marjorie, professor emeritus at Commonwealth University-Lock Haven, and co-editor of Keystone Poetry. “The idea for this twentieth anniversary edition came from a discussion with one of the poets, Steve Myers, who teaches at DeSales University and who also was included in Common Wealth, the 2005 anthology. Steve felt strongly that it was time for another anthology, something that Jerry and I had already been considering. But this was the nudge that I needed. I emailed Jerry, and we agreed to write and submit a proposal to PSU Press for a twentieth anniversary edition.”

This project, done over five years (the planned release date was always 2025), was to be substantially different from the original. Jerry notes that the number of poets increased. “We had between 700 to 800 submissions by over 300 poets, from which we selected 182,” including Mountain Home writers Lilace Mellin Guignard and Judith Sornberger. In Common Wealth, up to three poems were by a single author, but for Keystone Poetry, only one poem from an author was selected. Both Jerry and Marjorie stressed that this collection needed to include every area of Pennsylvania.

“Thus, we have poems about urban areas, but also about taxidermy, the names of bars, boilo, a roller coaster, hockey, Ricketts Glen State Park—well, you get the idea,” says Marjorie. And, it needed to include world-shaping events that happened after 2005.

“You’ll find poems that address covid, the Tree of Life Synagogue massacre in Pittsburgh, the election, and gun violence, to name a few,” she adds.

Poetry is best as a performance, where the words are spoken and the breadth of the stanzas soar. Keystone Poetry is having an amazing statewide reading tour. Jerry notes that the initial readings were set up by PSU Press.

“They have a publicist that set up the first events much like the readings done for Common Wealth,” he says. But the two editors were delighted with the places and contributors that asked for regional readings. The tour has grown organically, and now there are dates for readings extending to May 2026. Events with fifty to seventy attendees have been held in every area of the state. “It’s exciting to hear accomplished poets writing about the places you live or have visited,” Marjorie says. Upcoming events are scheduled for Ursinus College, Grove City College, Gettysburg, “and a slew of virtual readings.”

In comparison, the development of Rivers, Ridges, and Valleys was lightning-quick. It was an editor at PSU Press who saw Jerry on a panel about regional writing and discussed a collection of essays.

“That got the ball rolling,” Jerry says. Some prose writers writing about rural Pennsylvania were contacted, and a general call was made through university listserves and social media. By the time the collection was selected and edited, the actual publication was not through PSU Press, but through Catamount Press, a division of Sunbury Press devoted to writing in northern Appalachia, so a good fit.

For this collection, Anne Dyer “AD” Stuart joined Jerry as an editor. AD hails from the southern states, and in talking about the “voice” of rural Pennsylvania, muses that even her native Mississippi no longer has one voice.

“So many of us are transplants from all over the place, and we bring our stomping grounds with us,” AD says. “Maybe every place is not losing a distinctive voice so much as gaining a choir. I think we sing to a place as much as it sings back to us. Maybe it’s not so much voice as it is subject matter, where those from a more rural area may have a different relationship with the land and notice their surroundings differently.” She notes that her family, including a husband from North Dakota, have established roots in rural Pennsylvania simply by working the land and raising animals on their farmette in Columbia County. That feeling of place echoes in the essays, including the two from Mountain Home writers Jimmy and Lilace Guignard.

In fact, the collection was nominated for Book of the Year by the Writers Conference of Northern Appalachia. Deborah Copley Reynolds, board member, notes that the book has already been through the first decision round and is on the long list for 2026 Book of the Year.

Find both Rivers, Ridges, and Valleys and Keystone Poetry in time for the holidays at your local bookstore.