Following its tradition of publishing books about work and the people who do it, small independent publishing house WPA Press has just reissued award-winning poet David Huddle’s classic “Paper Boy” (ISBN 979-8182110396/$12 USD), a collection filled with stories of growing up in an eccentric Appalachian town during the 1950s.
WPA Press, an independent press based in Trafford, PA, and run by writers Dave Newman and Lori Jakiela, with book design and editing by writer Caitlin Cruser, is dedicated to publishing new work and reissuing classics by writers who, as poet Philip Levine once said, “know what work is.”
The press has several connections to the University of Pittsburgh at ĢƵ. Newman and Jakiela are also Pitt-ĢƵ faculty members who lead the campus’s Professional and Creative Writing program; Cruser is a 2024 graduate of the program; and the press offers a practicum to students in Newman’s Literary Publishing class. Those students helped bring “Paper Boy” back in print.
"It's thrilling to be able to work with our students to release books by major authors and poets whose work speaks to the heart of working-class life. So many of our students work jobs and go to school and know what it means to have to balance life and art, joy and grind,” said Newman. “I'm so happy WPA can offer experiences, like re-releasing David Huddle's incredible ‘Paper Boy,’ that allow our students to see that the lives of so-called everyday people have a place in literature."
Originally published by The University of Pittsburgh Press in 1979, “Paper Boy” offers a vivid portrait of timeless working-class characters while mapping a landscape familiar to anyone from Appalachia and beyond.
In poems like “Holes Commence Falling,” Huddle unearths the truth about what happens when corporate greed takes over:
“The lead & zinc company / owned the mineral rights / to the whole town anyway, / and after drilling holes / for 3 or 4 years, / they finally found the right / place and sunk a mine shaft. / We were proud / of all that digging, / even though nobody from / town got hired.”
Sunken houses, a water crisis, environmental disaster. Huddle’s poems often read like contemporary headlines.
“It is difficult to get the news from poems, yet men die miserably every day for lack of what is found there,” William Carlos Williams famously wrote.
Decades away from its first printing, David Huddle’s “Paper Boy” brings the news.
“Paper Boy” is available on and through independent booksellers.
ĢƵ the Author:
David Huddle taught at The University of Vermont and the Bread Loaf Writers Conference/School of English. He is the author of more than 20 books, including novels, short-story collections, and volumes of poetry. His work appeared in “Esquire,” “The New Yorker,” and “Poetry,” as well as many other journals. His novel, “Nothing Can Make Me Do This,” won the Library of Virginia Award, and his poetry collection, “Black Snake at the Family Reunion,” won the PEN New England Award for Poetry. He passed away in 2025.
ĢƵ WPA Press:
WPA Press, an independent press based in Trafford, Pennsylvania and run by writers Dave Newman and Lori Jakiela, with book design and editing by writer Caitlin Cruser, is dedicated to publishing new work and reissuing classics by writers who, as poet Philip Levine once said, “know what work is.”
The press offers a practicum to students in Dave Newman’s Literary Publishing class at The University of Pittsburgh at ĢƵ. Those students helped bring “Paper Boy” back in print.
WPA titles include:
- “Greasy Handshakes” and “It’s a Paycheck, Not a Passion,” by Richard Gegick
- “Jehovah’s Jukebox,” by Joan Jobe Smith
- “Home Leave,” by Rebecca Jung
- “The Novelty Essays,” “Cash for Gold,” and “Ask Your Undertaker,” by Adam Matcho
- “Secret Society of Dog,” by Jimmy Cvetic
- “Ars Poetica Chemistrica,” by Jim Daniels
- “Bronzer Alert” and “Everything Around Us Moves,” by Vessa Yankevich
- “Moon’s Door,” by Jane McCafferty
- “While We Were Waiting to Become Part of Our Century,” by Celeste Gainey
- “Earth is a Planet,” by Heather McNaugher
- “When Humans Attack,” by Alicia Erian
- “Paper Boy,” by David Huddle
For more information about WPA Press, contact dnewman1000@aol.com or lljakiela@gmail.com.