Valerie Nieman
Biographical Information
Novelist and poet Valerie Gail Nieman was born July 6, 1955 in Jamestown, New York. She attended Jamestown Community College for a year before enrolling at West Virginia University, where she completed a BS in journalism in 1978. She worked as a reporter and staff writer for both the Morgantown Dominion Post and the West Virginia University News Service before joining the staff of the Fairmont Times West Virginian in 1979, a position she held until 1992, when she became city editor. She spent three years in that position before advancing again, becoming executive editor of the Times West Virginian. During this time, Nieman taught also taught both news writing and science fiction writing. She was one of the founding editors of the literary journal Kestrel and co-founder and co-director of the Kestrel Writers Conference. She left the Times West Virginian in 1997 to become Rockingham County editor of the Greensboro, North Carolina News & Record. Neiman completed an MFA in creative writing at Queens University of Charlotte (NC), and then joined the faculty of North Carolina A & T State University. She lives and works in Greensboro, NC.
Neiman published her first novel, Neena Gathering, in 1988. A post-apocalypse science fiction novel set in an alternative West Virginia, Neena Gathering is the story of a young girl in an America that has disintegrated into warring states who must cope with the horrors of the collapse of civilization while trying to preserve happiness and love in a world gone dark. Also in 1988, she published a poetry chapbook, Slipping Out of Old Eve. She published a second poetry chapbook, How We Live, in 1996. Her second novel, Survivors, was published in 2000. In 2004, she published a collection of short fiction, Fidelities. A second poetry collection, Wake, Wake, Wake, is due to be published in September 2006 by Press 53. In addition, Valerie Nieman has contributed numerous poems to periodical publications. Some works have been published under the name Valerie Nieman Colander.
Critical Responses
One reader commenting on Nieman’s first novel, Neena Gathering, wrote that “a likable heroine and low-key but lyrical style make this an enjoyable read despite a very common theme.” A Publishers Weekly reviewer made a similar statement about the book, writingUnlike many post-holocaust stories that offer Huck Finns wandering the wasteland, this charming, unpretentious novel delves into a different form of the pastoral, modeling itself on Thoreauvian attention to a person’s place and moral actions in the sphere’s of nature, society, intellect, and the like.”
Nieman’s second novel, Survivors, received more mixed reviews. Survivors is the story of a West Virginia family during the early 1970s trying to cope with the tragic loss of its favorite son in a mining accident. Lynn Andriani of Book called Survivors “a poignant, if often depressing, tale about family bonds.” Jerry Bledsoe, author of Bitter Blood and Death Sentence, said “with sure and true imagery, Valerie Nieman puts us in a disintegrating family in a disintegrating West Virginia town and makes us one with the people and the place.” A reviewer for Publishers Weekly was less charmed by the book, commenting that “Nieman has abandoned all hope of salvation for her characters, and the novel sinks under the weight their unrelenting hopelessness.”
Critics have responded positively to Fidelities, Nieman's most recent works of fiction. Jennifer Lynch, reviewing the collection for Graffiti, remarks
Taken individually, each story looks at the life of characters so real and intricate, I felt I knew someone just like many of them. Taken as a whole, the collection is an interpretative look at the motivations, loyalties, and obligations of a group of ordinary individuals.
Later, she adds that
These short stories, when read together, blend well and offer the reader plenty to reflect on. A woman composing an announcement for the paper, the muddy bottom of a drained lake, the thick leaves of May apples and a beautiful girl at a donut shop all come together and leave the reader aware of his or her own loyalties, "fidelities," and the little poetic details that matter in the scope of human relationships.
Works Published
Fiction
- Neena Gathering
- Survivors
- Fidelities
Poetry
- Slipping out of Old Eve
- How We Live
Selected Bibliography
Andriani, Lynn. Survivors (book review). Book, November 2000. pp.83.
Kaganoff, Peggy. Neena Gathering (book review). Publishers Weekly, May 27, 1988. pp.56.
Lynch, Jennifer. Fidelities (book review). Graffiti. January 2005.
Survivors (book review). Publishers Weekly, December 6, 1999. pp.51.
Author Website
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