Resource Roundup #1
Your list of things to check out this week.
Hello all,
Exciting news— starting this week, we’ll be sending a resource roundup every Thursday of articles, songs, poems, films, publications, and more that we think are worth taking a look at. Many of these resources will highlight artists, individuals, and organizations doing important work in rural America and the American South that we feel deserve greater recognition. These are tools to bring you joy, expand your perception, and help highlight some of the awesome people who inspire us.
I also want to take a moment to thank all of you who have signed up for this newsletter so far. The support has been amazing, and I’m very grateful for everyone who takes the time to read my scattered internet thoughts.
If you have not yet subscribed to Good Folk, take a second to do so below. Also, we’d love if you share Good Folk by forwarding to friends or posting on social media if you feel so inclined! We’re on Twitter over at @goodfolksonly and reachable by email at goodfolksonly@gmail.com if you have a resource you think we should feature.
Now that that’s out of the way, here is your first weekly Resource Roundup, below…
The ever-brilliant Roxane Gay penned this essay, “We Are All Fragile Creatures” about bodies, doughnuts, and vaccinations for her newsletter, The Audacity. So good and says so much about American attitude towards bodies, as well as our problem with holding empathy towards other bodies.
I discovered musician Tim Higgins this week through a lovely article for Reckon Magazine about building creative community in a rural Alabama town. Tim has a beautiful voice, and this song struck me deeply, especially these lyrics: “It’s time to be honest / and face the truth / nine people are dead / because of a white youth"
Are you following the Amazon union drama? You should be. Rand Wilson and Peter Olney have some great coverage about it, especially about the Southern labor movement, for In These Times.
Speaking of Amazon workers, I highly recommend the film Nomadland if you have’t seen it yet. This country does such a great job of glamorizing van life, but this movie unpacks that and shows the impact of capitalism on community. Plus, Frances McDormand is just so good. It’s streaming on Hulu.
I recently finished reading Madeline Miller’s Circe (I’m late to the game, I know), and I can’t stop thinking about this passage:
Anyone who knows me knows that the more I read The Bitter Southerner, the more obsessed with it I become. Their journalism is the most replicative of the South I know of anywhere I’ve read. I highly recommend Joy Priest’s, “I Feel Most Southern in the Hip-Hop of my Adolescence” and this brilliant piece by Beth Ward on farming, racism, and the concept of wilderness.
And lastly, some food for thought:
