2025-2026 Common Reading Selection
Black Bear Creek: Stories by Joshua Cross is the 2025-2026 Shepherd University common reading selection. All are invited to “Read the Book & Join the Conversation!” throughout the academic year (Aug. 2025-April 2026), as part of the 19th annual Common Reading Program.
Tucked away in a remote hollow of West Virginia’s Coal River Valley, lies the town of Black Bear Creek, well past its glory days, and ravaged by the mining industry on which its people depend. The characters in Joshua Cross’s debut story collection struggle to survive against rampant poverty while their drinking water is poisoned and the mountains around them are stripped away. Spanning decades, these are stories of couples who marry too young because they have no other choice. Of life shattering injuries inflicted by the dangers of working in the mines. Of wounded men and women forced to be so hard they are frequently surprised by their own vulnerability. And despite the bleak backdrop of the only home many of these characters will ever know, these are stories about how they find ways to love and hope and fight. Black Bear Creek was originally published by Southeast Missouri State University Press.
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The Common Reading Program is made possible through the support of the Shepherd University Foundation. 
Additional sponsors include Scarborough Library; Shepherd University Bookstore; Four Seasons Bookstore in Shepherdstown, WV; individual donors; the Robert C. Byrd Center for Congressional History & Education; and other partners across the campus and community.