People with roots in Appalachia are taught to stand up to people because we haven’t forgotten what was taken from us. It is a huge region, but each major area has been pushed too far too often, with little agency or choice. For those in coal country, they lost their land to coercion, resource speculation, and railroad land use laws. They then found themselves bound in . . . Continue Reading
Honey Branch, not unlike other parts of rural Appalachia, has a paradoxically bittersweet character. Home to rugged mountains, babbling creeks, thick foliage and various wildlife, the natural beauty and quiet stillness of the holler recall a simpler time. It is only five minutes away from St. Paul, Virginia, a small town whose revitalization has focused on rural tourism like kayaking and ATV trails. To those of us who lived on the branch, though, there is a haunting darkness . . . Continue Reading
Horace, calm as always, loaded his muzzle-loader rifle, just in case, then gathered some deadfall tree branches, and built a roaring fire on the riverbank. Abby and his family huddled by the fire while Horace looked all around, watching for predators. Having only an axe, an adze, and a handsaw for tools, Horace created a lean-to shelter on the steep . . . Continue Reading
Clouds pinwheel
atop mountain-pleated land,
celebrating . . . Continue Reading
Next morning Lottie joined the men kicking up dust on New Cut Road, stiff from a night on the ground and stretching their shoulder and back muscles. With her battered fedora pulled low over her face, Lottie looked at a distance like any other young hobo clomping along in work boots and overalls . . .Continue Reading
To say that Hollins University is haunted would be a bit of an understatement. Records of the various spirits and supernatural occurrences popcorn throughout the school’s almost 200-year history: correspondence from the mid-19th century debates the level of concern that should be assigned to the strange occurrences in a student’sContinue Reading
Welcome, readers. We have now come to the end of our journey. I hope everyone has avoided our creatures thus far. Hopefully, this series has better prepared readers for any future encounters. Let’s explore and investigate the following creatures together. XVI. Tennessee Wildman First Encounter: 1800s in McNairy County,Continue Reading