Mountain Readers Week will be held Oct. 5-9, 2026! Our book this year is Little Red and BIG, BAD FRED by Ashley Belote.
Learn more about Be My Neighbor Day! And check out our recap from last year.
On Demand
On Demand
Watch locally produced documentaries & more.
On Demand
On Demand
West Virginia Morning
Inside Appalachia
West Virginia Week
Mountain Stage
Us & Them
The Legislature Today
The Legislature This Week
Send us your comments and questions.
Stream our board meetings.
Check out the latest WVPB news.
Sign up for our newsletter and get weekly updates.
Meet the WVPB staff.
WV Educational Broadcasting Commission, the WVPB Foundation, and the Friends of WVPB.
Come work with us!
Read our annual report and learn how we educate, inform and inspire with your support.
Sponsor impactful and engaging media and entertainment.
Use your IRA to make a gift to WVPB.
Become a member with your gift of $1,000 or more.
Make WVPB part of your legacy.
Manage your membership account.
Learn how you can Protect and Sustain West Virginia Public Broadcasting.
Some of the stories on our show inspired college student art — including a vivid image of a bear smashing a clarinet.
Also, a Hare Krishna community in West Virginia serves vegetarian food made in three sacred kitchens.
And, COVID-19 exposed the contempt society has for marginalized people. One author says, these folks are anything but passive.
You’ll hear these stories and more this week, Inside Appalachia.
In This Episode:
We occasionally hear from educators who find ways to work Inside Appalachia into their classrooms. In December, the show was tagged in an Instagram post by West Virginia University (WVU) art professor Joseph Lupo.
The post showcased four-color reductive relief prints made by WVU students — each one inspired by a story or episode they heard on Inside Appalachia.
Host Mason Adams spoke with three of Lupo’s students and asked them to describe their work and its connection to the show. But first, he asked Lupo to explain the assignment he gave his class.
New Vrindaban is a Hare Krishna community in West Virginia’s Northern Panhandle. It started in the late 1960s and is home to a few hundred permanent residents — but thousands of pilgrims visit each year. They come to worship in the temple — and to visit the opulent Palace of Gold.
But those main attractions were a pretty small part of Folkways reporter Zack Harold’s trip. He ended up spending much of his time in the kitchen.
More than one million Americans have died from COVID-19. Some groups of folks died at much higher rates than others. And those deaths tended to follow lines of race, class, age and disability. In other words, conditions that were already making life harder for some people played out during the pandemic, too.
Last year, host Mason Adams spoke with reporter Sarah Jones about her book, Disposable: America’s Contempt for the Underclass.
The Trump administration has slashed federal jobs and loosened energy production regulations, and delayed a Biden-era rule to protect miners against silica dust, which contributes to black lung disease. Last April, we spoke with Leann Ray, the editor-in-chief of the nonprofit news outlet, West Virginia Watch, about an editorial she wrote.
------
Our theme music is by Matt Jackfert. Other music this week was provided by Tim Bing, Frank George, Blue Dot Sessions and Hello June.
Bill Lynch is our producer. Abby Neff is our associate producer. Our executive producer is Eric Douglas. Kelley Libby is our editor. Our audio mixer is Patrick Stephens. We had help this week from Folkways editor Chris Julin.
You can send us an email: InsideAppalachia@wvpublic.org.
You can find us on Instagram, Threads or here on Facebook.
Sign-up for the Inside Appalachia Newsletter!
Inside Appalachia is a production of West Virginia Public Broadcasting.
Add WVPB as a preferred source on Google to see more from our team
Federal health researchers at the CDC have a new report about black lung disease among the most experienced coal miners in Appalachia. They are suffering from the incurable disease at the highest rates in nearly half a century.
Continue Reading Take Me to More NewsVirginia 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.
Continue Reading Take Me to More NewsThe 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.
Continue Reading Take Me to More NewsRoadside 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.
Continue Reading Take Me to More News
