Written by Delonda Anderson Editor A few years ago, I attended the James Agee Conference for Literature and Arts at Pellissippi State Community College in Knoxville, Tennessee. The event broke into several workshops and sessions that mostly focused on new Appalachian talent with a smattering of old genius. During theContinue Reading
Grace put the top down on the old Miata and we burned the open road, our hair spinning wild as Medusa in the crisp late spring. We should travel to Monrovia, California to see Upton Sinclair’s house, she had said, and take one of those cross-country road trips on ourContinue Reading
**Warning: Graphic Depictions of Violence in this post Have you ever met the devil in Appalachia? Alone in unnerving wooded areas day or night? The devil wears different disguises. For some, he is a brawny satyr with goat legs, bovine horns, and an arrowed pin tail. For others, the devilContinue Reading
The next part of our journey transports us on a cold December day to Briceville, Tennessee – just a hop, skip, and a jump away from Coal Creek. We arrive at the Cross Mountain mine almost ten years after the Fraterville mine disaster. Coal camps in Appalachia were cheerful inContinue Reading
After the Coal Creek War, coalminers garnered a new respect, reclaimed their jobs and formed unions. Coal companies gained a skilled workforce and restructured the industry better than it was before convict-leasing. Families were relatively happy as normalcy and stability returned. Ten years after the Coal Creek War’s end, however,Continue Reading
for Big Benny A monarch’s image flitters across the honored on that glassy, black wall, floating sideways, backward, up, down, caught up in concentric wind loops across names, nearly 60,000 etched. A person with paper scratches a son with lead. She is gray, drained, rock-wrinkled. Old, fixed medals and buttonsContinue Reading
When I was about five years old (before we moved to the holler), my family and I lived in a little green house on a little paved street in Jacksboro, Tennessee. My younger brother and I often felt cramped in our small, grassy yard, so we regularly wandered—but rarely tooContinue Reading
On closer look it becomes what we most despise: something unnameably near, confounding us with its ability to make vague silhouettes of familiar landmarks or bloat the once-solid shapes of signs lending geometric certitude to all our directions. — Edward Francisco From “The Terror of Kudzu” One of myContinue Reading
I am come from earth And return to earth. Blankets of green grasses Dig into this earth. Sighing now, I stroll In hollows of earth, Never seeming to find My spot on this earth. Wandering onward With creatures of earth, I watch the aged and the sick Go back toContinue Reading
Inside and outside Appalachian homes, you might find any number of up-cycled, homemade gadgets pieced together in ways that Dr. Frankenstein would envy. You might notice saw-marked furniture restored as closely as possible to original designs. Folk art, tasteful or not, could be a painted sign, string art, or evenContinue Reading