Virginia writer Emilee Hackney has a complicated relationship with her home. She loves the place where she’s from, in Tazewell County — her friends, family, the swimming holes and mountains and wild places — but she also felt stifled. Her new memoir "All That’s Unseen: An Appalachian Memoir" explores this tension and her experience when she did leave. Inside Appalachia Host Mason Adams spoke with Hackney about the book.
EJ Henderson After The Flood And “Little Seed,” Inside Appalachia
Jayne Henderson builds her own future as a guitar and ukulele maker.Janie Witte
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After Helene, an Asheville guitar maker grapples with how to help her neighborhood when there’s so much need.
A church in West Virginia is helping turn unwanted guns into garden tools.
And, for writer Wei Tchou, it took leaving her home in East Tennessee to start seeing herself in a new way.
In This Episode
Catching Up With Luthier Jayne Henderson After The Flood
Gun And Garden
A Study Of Identity And Ferns In “Little Seed”
Catching Up With Luthier Jayne Henderson After The Flood
Elizabeth ‘Jayne’ Henderson in her workshop in Asheville, North Carolina before Hurricane Helene.
Credit: Janie Witte
Earlier this year, we visited the workshop of renowned guitar-maker Wayne Henderson, for a story about him and his daughter, Jayne Henderson.
Jayne lives in Asheville, North Carolina, and Wayne lives in Rugby, Virginia. Both places were wrecked by Hurricane Helene. Folkways reporter Margaret McLeod Leef caught up with Jayne in the days following the storm.
Gun And Garden
Outside the Shepherdstown Fire Department, Craig Snyder runs a firearm through a power tool, dismantling it. Photo Jack Walker.
Sometimes when people die, they leave behind guns, and their relatives don’t always know what to do with them. So a church in West Virginia’s Eastern Panhandle is providing a way to dispose of old firearms – and find new uses for them. WVPB’s Jack Walker reported.
A Study Of Identity And Ferns In “Little Seed”
Author Wei Tchou explores nature and personal identity in her book, “Little Seed.” Courtesy photo.
The book “Little Seed” by Wei Tchou (CHEW) is a hybrid of nature writing and memoir. Tchou’s parents migrated from China and raised her in eastern Tennessee. The book’s chapters alternate between stories of her passage into adulthood, and descriptions of ferns and closely related plants. Mason Adams spoke with Tchou several weeks before Hurricane Helene.
Our theme music is by Matt Jackfert. Other music this week was provided by Amethyst Kiah, Wayne Henderson, Jane Kramer, Gerry Milnes, Steve Earle, John Blissard and Blue Dot Sessions.
Bill Lynch is our producer. Zander Aloi is our associate producer. Our executive producer is Eric Douglas. Kelley Libby is our editor. Our audio mixer is Patrick Stephens. You can find us on Instagram @InAppalachia.
You can send us an email: InsideAppalachia@wvpublic.org.
Virginia writer Emilee Hackney has a complicated relationship with her home. She loves the place where she’s from, in Tazewell County — her friends, family, the swimming holes and mountains and wild places — but she also felt stifled. Her new memoir "All That’s Unseen: An Appalachian Memoir" explores this tension and her experience when she did leave. Inside Appalachia Host Mason Adams spoke with Hackney about the book.
The West Virginia Manufacturers Association has just launched its inaugural Coolest Thing Made In West Virginia tournament. We caught up with WVMA President Bill Bissett to find out what organizers hope will come from the competition – and what makes a really cool product.
Roadside farmstands with homemade jams and bread are a common sight in Appalachia. Because they’re unmanned, many of them work on the honor system: Take a carton of berries, leave some cash. But the humble farm stand is changing to keep up with an increasingly cash-free society. Folkways Reporter Wendy Welch recently visited a stand in Wythe County, Virginia and has this.
Data center development is a fast-growing industry, with projects popping up in seemingly every corner of the country. But that’s not been the case in West Virginia so far. For the Appalachia + Mid-South Newsroom, Chris Schulz reports state officials are rolling out the red carpet for the expensive and increasingly expansive projects.
