Feb 27
By Niki King
We here at The HillVille can’t get enough of Emily Satterwhite’s thought-provoking book Dear Appalachia: Readers, Identity, and Popular Fiction since 1878, in which she examines how readers receive best-selling Appalachian fiction. We recently caught up with Satterwhite for a quick, follow-up conversation about the new release. Read our review of the book here.
Welcome to another installment of our “Back Home Proud” series, a re-occurring feature in which Apps and Ex-Apps tell us, in their own words, what their Appalachian identity means to them. Today we hear from Sam Shinault, a photographer, guitarist and mandolin player for the Two Dollar Bill Band, an old-time, bluegrass and newgrass band in the Hampton Roads area of Virginia. Read more
By Beth Newberry
Tomorrow, Tuesday, Feb. 14, is “I Love Mountains Day,” at the Kentucky State Capitol in Frankfort, Ky., a community organizing event and lobbying day sponsored by Kentuckians for the Commonwealth (KFTC). KFTC is a statewide citizens’ group working for social change on a grassroots level. Read more
By Niki King
Where do Appalachian stereotypes come from? It’s a question that gives rise to seemingly easy, immediate answers—movies, television shows and news media. Read more
This is the first installment of our “Back Home Proud” series, a re-occurring feature in which Apps and Ex-Apps tell us, in their own words, what their Appalachian identity means to them. In keeping with our “Rural Retreat” issue, we hear from John Haywood, a painter and musician, who moved from Eastern Kentucky to Louisville and back again. He now operates his own tattoo parlor on Main Street in Whitesburg, Ky.
For our Rural Retreat issue, The HillVille caught up with Meghan Dorsett, who publishes The Community Planner, a practical ‘how-to’ planning guide, to find out what trends she’s encountering in Appalachia’s small towns and communities. She wasn’t surprised a bit when Forbes.com recently listed Boone, N.C., as one of the fastest growing small towns in America. Change is here for some areas, she says, and it’s all about the baby boomers.
In 2008, Katie McCaskey made the decision to move from NYC, back home to Staunton, Va., where she could afford to own a house and open a business. Even though Staunton is small, she still enjoys downtown amenities, the town’s historic character and walkability, the same things she loved about urban living. Becoming an entrepreneur hasn’t always been smooth sailing, but the experience has made her a passionate advocate for small towns, ‘micropolitans’ as she calls them, and their potential. She’s written an inspiring manifesto encouraging others to invest in them as she has. She recently shared her discoveries with The HillVille.
By Beth Newberry
We’ve collected a short list of a few blogs we read to keep us in touch with our rural roots. These blogs are kin to The HillVille in the shared purpose of uplifting folklore, current events, culture, news, politics, connecting rural and urban areas and exploring that unshakable yearning for back home.
By Niki King
This week chicagomag.com’s Whet Moser contemplated race relations and Southern migration to the Windy City in the years up to and following World War II, a time when millions of Appalachians were moving to Chicago and other Midwestern cities to find work.
For five months, at the request of and via the introduction of Frank X Walker, editor of PLUCK! The Journal of Affrilachian Arts and Culture, four writers shared stories of food, land, home, race, sexuality and writing. In doing so, they illuminated the experience of being Latino in the United States and in Appalachia specifically. Read more
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