W. Scott Hanna is a professor of English at West Liberty University, where he teaches creative writing and literature. His poetry and creative nonfiction have been published in Pine Mountain Sand and Gravel, Cleaver Magazine, Still: The Journal, Porter House Review, and others. He served as the poetry editor of the Northern Appalachia Review from its inaugural volume in 2020 until 2025. Born and raised in the Upper Ohio Valley, he currently lives in St. Clairsville, Ohio. His debut collection of poetry The Only House on the Left is now available from Kelsay Books. 

His piece "Years of Gravity," published in Porter House Review, is a Best of the Net Nominee for 2025. 

Now available from Kelsay Books

 

The Only House on the Left is a collection of poetry and prose arranged in five sections that can be read as a memoir in verse. The first section contains poems of childhood memories and family portraits; the second section is a longer, metaphorical coming-of-age piece focusing on initiation moments; the third section details relationship poems; the fourth section focuses on poems of fatherhood; and the final section contains poems dealing with the grief that results from the loss of a parent. Cycling through this chronology of life experience, the book ultimately ends on a note of hope and the kind of redemption that can only be found deep in the roots of home and family. 

 

Published on December 20th, The Only House on the Left is now available for online purchase from Kelsay Books and Amazon.com.

 

In-person copies will be available for purchase at the upcoming events listed below. 

 

The cover image is done in mixed-media illustration by Kathryn Weir. Each image in the collage is a reference to imagery found throughout the poetry and prose of The Only House on Left. To learn more about Katie and to see more of her artwork, visit the Illustration Gallery page.

 

 

Commentary on The Only House on the Left

 

In The Only House on the Left Scott Hanna strips his Appalachian home, “by a river men once named beautiful,” to its foundation — one of memory and longing. He knows “something is broken” in this place, and these tender poems of “memory digging in” not only seek reclamation but also wonder “how far back is far enough?” Hanna’s “alive, unfiltered, and beautiful” debut collection “all tastes so goddamned good.” These poems take us on a full-circle journey — home. With stark imagery of the Ohio Valley and an authentic exploration of all “the questions the living keep living,” they encourage us to remember, to embody, the truth of this existence, our mutual “need for someone to hold us up.”


—CJ Farnsworth, author, If You Keep Making That Shameface…

 

As all poets who live downstream from Pittsburgh know, they write under the shadow of James Wright. There are moments here where even a simple phrase stops the heart the way a Wright poem so often does. From the title poem, for example, we read: “turning toward words we would never end up saying, always turning toward the empty winter of now.” These are brave poems, unafraid to tackle fear and doubt, unafraid in their many elegiac remembrances that meticulously observe the dynamics of loss and dying with honesty and conviction.


—Marc Harshman, Poet Laureate of West Virginia

 

The Only House on the Left casts a sensory spell, unfurling a synchrony of Upper Appalachian generational experiences shadowed by iron-hard grief and a strange joyous glow of “being alive, unfiltered, and beautiful” inside specific place-time. Hanna’s detailed narrative poems take haunting lyrical turns, navigating the dynamic territories of home where milestones continue “ticking by like fence posts in the rearview.” Never will we fully separate from the front porches, wrecked kitchens, cradles, coalfields, suburbs, deathbeds, creek banks, and starscapes of our lives. Indeed, this book invites us to recognize our most immediate, vulnerable selves while also accepting that existence stretches far “beyond our seeing / beyond our knowing.”


—Sherry Cook Stanforth, Managing Editor, Pine Mountain Sand & Gravel

Upcoming Events

  • Reading and Book Launch for The Only House on the Left, date and location TBD
  • "Mother, Father, Son, Daughter: Poetry and Prose on Family Life in Northern Appalachia." Joint reading with Carrie Hohman. Writers Conference of Northern Appalachia. March 7th, St. Francis University, Loretto, PA.
  • Reading with Pine Mountain Sand and Gravel contributors, March 19 - 21, Huntington, WV.
  • Poems from The Only House on the Left, Elbin Library, West Liberty University, April 15th, 2025 at 12:00pm.