Resource Roundup #6
For the week of May 20th.
Happy Thursday all,
Welcome to your weekly resource roundup. How is already almost the end of May? The past few weeks have been ridiculously busy, and I have barely gotten time to think, much less write. I realized this week I’ve even left out writing prompts in the past few newsletters. But as my teaching job wraps to a close for the year, I promise we will be back to our regular programming (and a lot of exciting things coming up soon!).
Tons of good stuff here this week, below. Give it a read and as always, feel free to email us with suggestions of anything to feature.
Pre-pandemic, I was meant to be filming a documentary with a friend in Ohio, and we spent a lot of time trying to find any academic studies or professors whose work focused on the midwest. Probably to no one’s surprise, there weren’t many, and I’ve been baffled ever since by how we fail to have rural studies departments in academia. This is a great interview with Dr. Lisa Pruitt, who grew up in Arkansas and is the MLK Jr. Professor of Law at UC Davis, about rural stereotypes and the gap in rural research. On the idea that this county— and especially the liberal left— needs to expand its idea of rural life she writes:
“The tendency now, on the left, is often to hear only rural anger, but I try to look for the underlying longing. What is it rural folks need and want? Very often, they want to be seen and appreciated for their contributions, and that is surely not so much for anyone to ask.”
These incredible photos from the 1972 Morris Family Old-Time Music Festival in Ivydale, West Virginia, published in The Bitter Southerner this week and taken by author Jay Steele’s mother, Amy Steele. West Virginia State Folklorist Emily Hilliard chimed in on Twitter with more info about the festival, which was founded by John and David Morris with a focus on “Appalachian old-time, ballad singing, gospel, blues & labor songs”, and included festival flyers which read, “Sorry No Country and Western, Bluegrass or Electric Inst. On Programs.” According to Hilliard, the festival drew an audience of thousands from across the country, but all the performers were of and from Appalachia. I would like to have gone to this festival in the 70s more than I can say.
Eula Hall, self-proclaimed “hillbilly activist” passed away this week at 93 years old. In her life, she worked to expand healthcare access to mountaineers and coal miners in eastern Kentucky at the Mud Creek Clinic. When that clinic burned down, she launched a new one three days later. She also worked to bring medicine and water to those who couldn’t get to the clinic, frequently participated in miners’ strikes, and was president of the Kentucky Black Lung Association. Learn more about her and her plethora of accomplishments here.
I first discovered Ashleigh Bryant Phillips, author of story collection Sleepovers (read some of her work here), on Twitter, where we overlap in being both from North Carolina, mildly chaotic, and heavily invested in good Southern Lit. I loved this interview with her in The Believer on what constitutes an interesting life. This line about talking with well-meaning people from outside the South sums it all up for me: “People really don’t like to admit that there’s a place they really don’t know about.” Ashleigh, if you see this I think you are the coolest and I would very much like to be friends. I am free literally almost always.
This poem by Palestian-American poet and journalist Noor Hindi, published by Poetry Foundation:
I can’t wait to one day move up to the mountains surrounding Asheville and befriend the ridiculously cool artists of “Different Wrld”, profiled by i-D magazine this week.
It’s almost summer, which means I will be listening exclusively to Southern Rock for the next four months. Into this Spotify playlist, and will have it on speakers for the foreseeable future.