We’re coming upon a holiday where we as a people gather together and reflect on gratitude. We may contemplate the hundreds of Thanksgivings our people had before us. Or, perhaps, we ruminate over the gatherings in the most recent decade. A particular dish. A special person. A family tradition. We also remember our Native American brothers and sisters who sacrificed and suffered greatly in this region we love so much. We say prayers for our brave soldiers overseas and pay homage to our veterans. And, for just about all of us, we acknowledge an empty chair, a presence no longer tangible, a life lived, a life loved. Still others take this time to become introspective and analyze thoughts, feelings, beliefs, etc.
Our own Appalachia Bare family would like to take this time to say
Thank You
Thank you to all our submitters and subscribers. Thank you to our readers. Thank you for your comments, your “likes,” your support, your interest. Thank you for your patience and for sharing Appalachia Bare with others. Thank you to those who peruse the site and bookmark it for future reading. You all mean so much to us–in these mountains, of these mountains, with these mountains. You spur us forward in this endeavor to offer great content from and/or about Appalachia.
The following are those who submitted content in 2023—from Thanksgiving to Thanksgiving. We are so grateful that you chose Appalachia Bare as a venue to showcase your talents.
✍🏻Fiction
- Vincent Bernabeo — Rooted in Radicalism
- D.M. Branch — Whoever Heard of a Birthday Cake
- B. Craig Grafton — The Gettysburg Ironies
- Jeffrey Wiggs — The Way Things Are
- Susan Long — Blue Impala Chapter 11: “Fashion Flair for the Living and Dead”
- Ivy Love Brown — Revisiting “The Legend of Rockface“
- Rocky Kidd — The Blue Door
✍🏼Nonfiction/ Creative Nonfiction
- Benny Franklin Shown Sr. — Flashback in Time VI: The Final Entry
- Jim Clark — Ungovernable Mary
- Thomas Ballard — Groundhog Day and A Belly Full of Bugs
- Manderley Swain — RPGs and PTSD or How Gaming Turned into Therapy and Grandmother’s Button Box
- Sharon Carper — Bicycles
- Curtis N. Coulter — “The Complete Pitty Pat Hollow Tales”: An excerpt
- Diane Ely Binder — Slow Food
✍🏽Poetry
- Sarah Cummins Small — Spring on Chestnut Top
- Sarah Vance — Vacation Bible School
- Brett Gordon — With Love, West Virginia and Really Loud and Partially Deaf
- Ralph Monday — Where Have All the Paw Paws Gone and Red Jaws
- Danita Dodson — Smoky Mountain Memory
- Courtney McQueen — Appalachian Memories
- Anna Laura Reeve — Flower Moon
- C. F. Shushok — What We Find in the Magnolias
- David Patteson — Eulogy
- Hannah Bagley — Gopher’s Meadow
- Zoe Yates — The Joke
- Manderley Swain — Moments
- Thomas Ballard — Altered Trajectories
🎹Music/ Music Related
- Christine Greyson — The Significance of Appalachian Music in American Culture
- Stephen Billias — “Little Margaret“
- Julian Wolf and Living Sound Delusions Studios — East Kentucky Morning
🖼Photography
- Toni Dengel — 1st Place, Capturing Appalachia Photography Contest
- Misty Phillips — 2nd Place, Capturing Appalachia Photography Contest
- Katie Harr — Honorable Mention, Capturing Appalachia Photography Contest
- Trent Eades — Photography contest judge
- Jim Clark — Photography contest judge
🎞Video
- Rachel E. Harville — Chow Chow
📃Reviews
- Amber Albritton — Anna Laura Reeve’s Debut Poetry Collection: Reaching the Shore of the Sea of Fertility
- One for the Girls: A Review of Preserving Women’s History through ART by Mary Ruden
🚘Places & Events
- The 8th Annual Young Creative Writer’s Workshop, The 9th Annual Young Creative Writer’s Workshop
- Riding the Rails: Appalachia Bare at the Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum
- Comics and Horror and Heroes, Oh My!–Pellissippi State’s Mag Comic Expo
- Appalachia Bare Gettin’ Down & Dirty: Interview and Tour with Wayne Mason, University of Tennessee Composting Supervisor
- Alcatraz in Tennessee: A Crime Gallery from Alcatraz East Crime Museum
Appalachia Bare will return Tuesday, November 28 with special content.
**Featured image from Pxhere
Thank You! Thank you for the insightful, inspiring articles and the accompanying photographs, not to mention the extensive historical footnotes. Thank you for the beautiful photography of Appalachia. Thank you for sharing your personal stories with affection, humor, and honesty. Appalachiabare is truly revealing Appalachia story by story. It is obviously a place that you love. Thank you for sharing these stories with us.