Brenda Salyers has long been a collector of local books written by local folks through the years, and she knew how difficult it often was to locate these books. So, in 1988 a corner of the family-run grocery store was turned into Heritage Nook to give local authors and readers a ready market. When the grocery store closed a few years later the demand for local books remained strong, and Heritage Nook Books became a catalog-by-mail sales.

The 1990s were the heyday of memoirs, family genealogical publications and other writings. Brenda herself published two books of collections of family history, The Meades, From Henry to Sam, and Branhams and Kin: Descendants of Milly Branham.

When investigating the history of their hometown of Pound, Brenda and husband Larry discovered a rich, colorful, unrecorded past. Town residents joined together to form the Historical Society of the Pound, which eventually collected enough photographs and material to produce four books on the history of this once-lively Virginia town.

Encouraged by the proliferation of Appalachian books being published and printed by local presses, especially the Overmountain Press in Johnson City, Tennessee, the Salyers have embarked on the next step—meeting new readers through the cyber web.

Brenda was recently a guest writer for the Coalfied Progress. Click here to read the article.