Meet the Team
Abby Freeland
CofounderAbby Freeland is a book publishing professional with almost twenty years of experience in sales, marketing, publicity, and acquisitions. She began her career in the UK at Berg Publishers (now Bloomsbury) before returning to her home state of West Virginia, where she served as the sales and marketing director, head publicist, and fiction editor at West Virginia University Press for over ten years. She then spent four years as a senior acquisitions editor at the University Press of Kentucky, where she co-founded and managed the book series Appalachian Futures: Black, Native, and Queer Voices and acquired in several other areas, including creative nonfiction, memoir, poetry, fiction, civil rights, history, and more.
Abby has worked on books that have been nominated for or have won American Book Awards, Lambda Literary Awards, PEN Awards, Weatherford Book Awards, the Stonewall Book Award, the CARICON Prize for Poetry, The Story Prize, and more. Additionally, she has worked on books and with writers that have been featured inThe New York Times, Fresh Air with Terry Gross, PBS News Hour, Book TV,All Things Considered, The Atlantic, Los Angeles Review of Books, Publishers Weekly, Kirkus(editor & publicist), CBS Sunday Morning, The Rumpus(editor & publicist), LitHub(editor & publicist), Good Morning America, Ms. Magazine, Salon, and more.
CofounderDavis Shoulders
Davis Shoulders is an indie bookseller who has worked at four independent bookstores in their 10-year career: Politics & Prose (Washington, DC), Union Ave Books (Knoxville, TN), Atlas Books (Johnson City, TN) and Read Spotted Newt (Hazard, KY). In 2021 they co-founded Atlas Books as a cooperative bookstore to champion the growing Appalachian literary movement. As a series editor for the book series Appalachian Futures: Black, Native, & Queer Voices at the University Press of Kentucky, Davis edited an anthology of queer Appalachian writers called Queer Communion: Religion in Appalachia published in the fall of 2025.
CofounderKendra Winchester
Kendra Winchester is a book media professional with over 15 years experience in publishing, social media, and podcasting. In 2016, she cofounded and served as Executive Director for Reading Women, a podcast partnered with LitHub Radio that received millions of downloads and was featured in The Washington Post, The Oprah Magazine, Buzzfeed, Electric Lit, Bustle, Book Riot, and more. During Reading Women’s run, Kendra interviewed authors like Min Jin Lee, Tressie McMillan Cottom Leigh Bardugo, Lauren Groff, Maggie O’Farrell, R.K. Kuang, Emily St. John Mandel, Samantha Irby, and Miriam Toews.
Kendra is deeply invested in the literature of her home region of Appalachia. In 2020, she founded Read Appalachia, a podcast and multi-media platform that celebrates Appalachian literature and writing, which won the 2023 e-Appalachian Award from the Appalachian Studies Association. In the summer of 2025, Kendra joined the Hub City Writers Project in Spartanburg, South Carolina, as their Events and Social Media Coordinator.
With deep expertise in building engaged digital communities and shaping online book conversations, Kendra understands how to position authors and titles for visibility in today’s media landscape. Her writing and audio features can be found in Book Riot, Kirkus Audiobook Reviews, Audible, and NPR’s Weekend Edition.
