I don’t remember the first time I heard “Coal Miner’s Daughter.” The song has been a familiar hymn from infancy, a lullaby my grandmother would sing along with “You Are My Sunshine” and “Rock-a-Bye Baby.” You see, like Loretta Lynn herself, my grandmother was a coal miner’s daughter from eastern […]
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The ‘Divisive’ School Lessons States Are Outlawing Have Been Improving Appalachian Education for Generations
Fog obscures the Clinch River on a Saturday morning this past October, as a group of educators gathers at St. Paul, Virginia’s Matthews Park. Shortly after arriving, part of the group moves to the riverbank, discussing how to tackle pollution from illegal dumping into the waterway. Another huddles around an […]
Read MoreKeep Your ‘Elegy’: The Appalachia I Know Is Very Much Alive
Ivy Brashear is the March 2022 host of 100 Days’ Creators and Innovators newsletter series. Sign up for the weekly email here. She backed her Cadillac long-ways across the one-lane road in front of her house, lit the Virginia Slim in her mouth, pulled her .38 pistol from her purse, […]
Read MoreCommentary: Instead of Raging Over ‘Maus,’ Support Local People Who Are Fighting the Ban
Plenty of people in East Tennessee are livid over a school board’s decision to remove “Maus” from the language arts curriculum. But indiscriminate outrage on TV and social media isn’t helping the local dissenters who are trying to build a better way forward. A few minutes before I gave an […]
Read MoreMore than a Stereotype: A Young West Virginian Wants a Different Conversation
In school growing up, it wasn’t uncommon to learn about what made each of our 50 states unique, and I was no exception: Florida is known for its beaches. Wisconsin is known for cheese. Kentucky is known for fried chicken. What is West Virginia known for? Anyone who lives here […]
Read More‘A Life-defining Year’: We’re Marking One Year of Publishing the Stories of Appalachian Youth
For the past week, I’ve plopped down to write about the one-year mark of a project we thought would last roughly eight weeks. Last October, we launched the Appalachian Youth Creators vertical, because we wanted to give young people space to think out loud, examine issues that impacted their identities […]
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