Mar 17
By Jeremy Dae Paden
Rebecca Gayle Howell’s first full-length book, Render: An Apocalypse, which won the Cleveland State University Poetry Center Prize for 2012 is beautiful. Read more
Upon dating a man from Eastern Kentucky, Louisville writer and editor Lisa Hornung recently discovered some of Appalachia’s more eccentric superstitions and pokes a little fun at us all.
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 Marianne Worthington
The Henley Street Bridge in Knoxville, Tenn.—a stunning arched connector that spans the Tennessee River and joins the downtown area with south Knoxville— is being dismantled and rebuilt. Read more
The HillVille 