COME IN AND STAY AWHILE

Stories

The Survival of the Community, Not of the Fittest

The pandemic left communities in Eastern Kentucky fighting for survival and waiting on government responses that came too slowly, so Misty Skaggs turned to the ancient principle of mutual aid.

Living Legacy

Between 1912 and 1932, a collaboration between a Black educator and a Jewish businessman produced 5,000 school buildings in which more than 600,000 African American children in the South were educated.

The Quiet We Share

Grief is an eternal shape-shifter. One of Appalachia’s most resonant voices guides us through it with three poems.

It’s Time for a Revolution in Southern Thinking

As we celebrate Pride Month, our editor prays that our beloved South will rise above old ways that bring hate where there should be love.

Water Always Wins

A jazz player who grew up roaming the banks of the Mississippi produces a musical meditation on life’s most essential element.

A Letter to the Southern Glitter Kids

He grew up in Mississippi and didn’t come out until he was thirty-one. Here is his letter to LGBTQ+ kids—words he wishes someone had shared with him years earlier.

Sunday Fatback

As a child, she saw only the difference between the simple food in her home and the fancier fare on her friends’ tables. Years later, she would see more clearly.

A Hundred Years of Earl Scruggs

In this centennial year of the North Carolina banjo legend’s birth, bluegrass wizard Tony Trischka extols his Earlness with a masterful tribute.

How to Make It Over Mountains

From northwest Virginia, two poems on the depths of persistence and the limits of our knowledge.

How to Understand America, According to My Father

My father believed a simple mental picture of history could make anyone a lifelong learner. So, he developed a three-century “Time Map.” The education establishment wasn’t interested.

Young and Queer and Mountaineer

Mesha Maren’s third novel, out this week, is a landmark achievement for a new generation of Appalachian writers who assert their right to be fully queer and fully mountaineer.

Georgia

Chock full of images, an ode to the spirit of the New South.

Better Branching for More Blooms

With spring in full swing, two glittering poems from southeast Tennessee.