Mountain Readers Week will be held Oct. 6-10, 2025! Sign up no later than Sept. 16 to guarantee a copy of this year's book!
Join WVPB for a free outdoor event on Sept. 13 in Charleston that promotes being a caring neighbor. Click here to learn more and RSVP!
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
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 Authority, the WVPB Foundation, and the Friends of WVPB.
Come work with us!
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.
This week, one person’s roadside weed is another’s “golden” treasure. So says a North Carolina fiber artist.
We also talk with a children’s book author about a school system that suspended its community reading program over concerns about the sex of her book’s main character — an oak tree.
And, Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library program is now available in every Kentucky community. We revisit our 2022 interview with the American icon.
You’ll hear these stories and more this week, Inside Appalachia.
In This Episode:
Dede Styles in North Carolina uses common roadside plants to make natural dyes for fabrics. She teaches the craft, but it’s also part of a bigger mission for Styles.
Folkways Reporter Rebecca Williams brings us this story.
Floyd County schools in Virginia host a program called “One Division, One Book.” They distribute a copy of the same book to every family, with a schedule to read a few chapters each night. This year, the book was Wishtree, by Newbery Award winner Katherine Applegate, but partway through the reading, the school abruptly suspended the program.
Applegate recently visited Floyd and Mason Adams spoke with her.
One program that’s connecting rural counties with books is pop icon Dolly Parton’s “Imagination Library.” Started in 1995, the childhood literacy program sends books to children all over the world at no charge to their families.
Last month, the program became available to all children aged five and under in Kentucky.
When that happened in West Virginia in 2022, Dolly Parton visited Charleston and spoke with former WVPB Executive Producer Suzanne Higgins.
——
Our theme music is by Matt Jackfert. Other music this week was provided by Sturgill Simpson, Todd Burge, Joe Dobbs and the 1937 Flood, Jeff Ellis, John Inghram, Dolly Parton and Gerry Milnes.
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. We had help this week from Folkways editor Jennifer Goren.
You can send us an email: InsideAppalachia@wvpublic.org.
You can find us on Instagram, Threads and Twitter @InAppalachia. Or here on Facebook.
Sign-up for the Inside Appalachia Newsletter!
Inside Appalachia is a production of West Virginia Public Broadcasting.
America’s deep social divides are colliding with a crisis of trust in the justice system. Stanford legal scholar David Sklansky tells Us & Them how practical reforms — and even the humble jury trial — can retrain us in the habits a pluralistic democracy needs. How fixing justice could help fix us.
Continue Reading Take Me to More NewsLawmakers are getting a better understanding of the state’s capacity to respond to deadly floods. And an Appalachian poet explores nature and marriage in his latest book.
Continue Reading Take Me to More NewsThis month, the CPB will begin winding down its operations. The funding cuts will mostly affect NPR and PBS affiliates like our home station. Smaller stations are being hit especially hard. Like Allegheny Mountain Radio, on the Virginia-West Virginia border. Inside Appalachia Host Mason Adams spoke with Scott Smith, Allegheny Mountain Radio’s general manager.
Continue Reading Take Me to More NewsThis week, the federal government has taken back millions of dollars set aside for public radio stations. Allegheny Mountain Radio is among those fighting to stay on the air. Also, a book by a West Virginia artist illustrates the tiny worlds of mountain critters, like a lizard that changes color. And, geocaching gets folks outside to play detective and find hidden treasures.
Continue Reading Take Me to More News
