West Virginia Women Writers: Shirley Stewart Burns

State Library Services
1900 Kanawha Blvd. E.
Culture Center, Building 9
Charleston, WV 25305

Phone: (304) 558-2045
Email: wvlcref@wv.gov

Shirley Stewart Burns talks, writes and sings about Mountaintop Removal and growing up in the West Virginia hills. A scholar with the traditional West Virginia upbringing, her father was a well-known area gospel singer, storyteller, and miner while her mother was known for her quilting. She grew up in Coon Branch Hollow and attended West Virginia University where she pursued her interest in mountaintop removal for her dissertation. She used her expertise on Appalachian communities as a section editor for the Encyclopedia of Appalachia.

At WVU, she obtained three degrees--a B.S. in news editorial journalism, a master's degree in social work, and a Ph.D. in history, with an Appalachian focus. Shirley and, her husband, Matthew live in Morgantown, W.V.

Coal Country: Rising Up Against Mountaintop Removal Mining      San Francisco: Sierra Club Books ; [Berkeley, Calif.] : Distributed by Publishers Group West, c2009

Bringing Down the Mountains: The Impact of Mountaintop Removal Surface Coal Mining on Southern West Virginia Communities, 1970-2004  Morgantown, W.Va. : West Virginia University Press, c2007

Bringing Down the Mountains: An Interview with author Shirley Stewart Burns. Charleston, WV: Library Television Network, 2010

“To Dance With the Devil” in Culture, Class, and Politics in Modern Appalachia: Essays in Honor of Ronald L. Lewis edited by Jennifer Egolf, Ken Fones-Wolf, and Louis C. Martin. Morgantown: WVU Press, 2009. In West Virginia Archives Library.

“Leave Those Mountains Down” (Ode to the Mountains) in Coal Country Music Laurel, MD: Heartwood, 2009.