Resource Roundup #45
For the week of August 26th.
Hello Folks,
There are been quite a few new people around here lately, so before we get into this week’s resource roundup— an extended edition since it is the last Friday of the month— I want to briefly re-introduce myself and this project.
I’m Spencer, and I’m the creator and writer around here at Good Folk. If you’re subscribed to our newsletter, you get me in your inbox at least once a week, usually twice. We publish essays on creativity, artistry, community, and empathy, with a particular focus on rural America and the American South, as well as weekly Resource Roundups that go out on Fridays. We also produce the Good Folk Podcast, which you can find here on Substack, on Spotify, or on Apple, which brings you conversations with artists, musicians, writers, activists, and community builders working in and around the rural South. You’ll also find our producer and Head of Media and Design, Vic Landers, on the podcast and running much of our design work behind the scenes.
I’m a writer and storyteller based in Durham, North Carolina. I grew up across the Carolinas and studied Creative Writing and Human Rights at Barnard College. Currently, I’m an M.A. student in Folklore at UNC Chapel Hill, which informs much of my work here with Good Folk. My writing has been published in The Bitter Southerner, Longreads, and The Adroit Journal, among others, and once received a shout-out in The New York Times, so I guess I’m doing something right. My family has deep roots to the Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina, and this is the only place that, for me, has ever truly felt like home. I spent the last two years working as a Teaching Artist in rural North Carolina schools, and I currently work in Marketing and Development at Girls Write Now, a literary mentorship nonprofit. Before that, I worked with StoryCorps, spent a summer teaching yoga at a boys summer camp in Canada, and traveled the world to research the role of personal testimony in human rights movements.
I knew I wanted to be a writer at six years old, and with that, I was sure of two things: 1) that I would have to leave the South in order to do so, and 2) that a career as a writer would be a lonely, serious endeavor that would probably lead me down a life path of depression and addiction. Because the only writers I had to look up to lived this way, I assumed it was the only path for me. It’s something I think I will spend the rest of my life unlearning.
Good Folk was born out of my desire to connect and mobilize artists working in rural and Southern areas to help dispel the myth that there is only one way to be an artist, and especially the myth that you must leave the places you know in order to fit that label. Arts movements have long thrived in rural communities, and especially across the South, but those aren’t the stories you’re going to find in the media, or on your television screen, or even in books. Our work here is to bring you those stories, but also to build a new community of all of us who grew up here, feeling lost with how to make our way, loving our home and also wanting to see it change and grow into a place that can love us back.
All this is to say, if you’re reading this newsletter, then you too are Good Folk. Welcome. We’re excited to have you here.
We dropped a new episode of the podcast this week with the lovely folks of Trash Tape Records, a youth run DIY record label based largely here in North Carolina. There is lots of wisdom here. I recommend you give it a listen if you have not already.
This is a great review of Casey Parks’ new book, Diary of a Misfit, which follows a Louisiana musician and the search for queer community in the deep South.
The Greensboro Review is open for submissions for the Robert Watson Literary Prizes until September 15th. Send in your work!
My very incredible friend and musician Nia J did a live performance for Noteworthy. Can you believe this is live? She’s ethereal. She is the moment. (You can listen to our podcast episode with Nia here).
Always wisdom from Alice Walker:
Adrian Miller is unpacking how barbecue became cool in Southern Cultures.
In The Southwest Review, East Tennessee writer Halle Hill in conversation with memoirist Kendra Allen. Also, can we talk about how STUNNING this book cover is?
In light of Tennessee’s decision on abortion today, re-sharing this piece from Scalawag.
Loving this photo series by Atlanta-based artist EWANG, featured in Oxford American.
And, lastly, isn’t this what we are all looking for in the end? I know I am.
“to build a new community of all of us who grew up here, feeling lost with how to make our way, loving our home and also wanting to see it change and grow into a place that can love us back.”
sounds like home.
paid sub is looking very worth it!