Praise for Blood Clay

“Blood Clay is a profoundly moving and beautifully written novel about a community torn apart by tragedy. Valerie Nieman is a writer of remarkable talent, and she has given us a book that, once read, will be hard for any reader to forget.” 

— Ron Rash, author of Serena

“Blood Clay is both a tense, plot-driven story about complicated issues of race and guilt, and a meditation on solitude, history, and ways of living. The writing is wonderfully fluid, visual, and vivid, but above all these felicities of style, I’m most impressed by Valerie Nieman's candid treatment of difficult subject matter and the broadness of her canvas. It is thoughtful, brave, intelligent.” 

— Jane Alison, author of The Sisters Antipodes: A Memoir

"There's violence here, and steamy sex, and strangeness aplenty, but Valerie Nieman's Blood Clay is no rural geekshow. This is a mature novel, full of living, breathing beings from whose passionate lives it is impossible to turn away. Books this fine are very rare indeed." 

— Pinckney Benedict, author of Miracle Boy and Other Stories

“Blood Clay has it all. The novel’s audacious and gripping plot begins with a shotgun-blast of a scene in which a horrible dog attack sends reverberations through a small North Carolina town and the rest of the book. Val Nieman has written what is destined to become a classic novel of Southern life.  I love this book.” 

— Elizabeth Stuckey-French, author of The Revenge of the Radioactive Lady

About the Author

Valerie Nieman's poems have appeared widely and been collected in two chapbooks and her debut collection, Wake Wake Wake (Press 53). She has held writing fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the North Carolina Arts Council. Her books of prose include three novels, with the most recent, Blood Clay, being honored with the Eric Hoffer Award. She is a graduate of West Virginia University and Queens University of Charlotte. A professor of creative writing at North Carolina A&T State University, she teaches at John Campbell Folk School and other venues, and serves as poetry editor for Prime Number Magazine. You may encounter her on a train, or solo hiking, or over a cup of lemon-ginger tea at a local bookstore.