The recent death of George Floyd poured salt onto a gaping, raw wound in this country. The event exposed excessive police force, police overreach, and the absolute need for reform. The following African American names are by no means an exhaustive list. Though the deaths of many of the AfricanContinue Reading

Appalachia Bare is proud to introduce a new monthly nature series written by Grant Mincy, an assistant professor of biology and (sometimes) geology at Pellissippi State Community College in Knoxville, Tennessee. He also sits on the Earth and Planetary Sciences Advisory Council for the University of Tennessee. He often hikesContinue Reading

     The ornaments on my Christmas tree      tell the story of my life.      Fisherman for Mamaw hangs      at the top,      she’s gone now, but      that man smiles like she did      when she saw me opening my gifts.      Red hope, an ornament for losing her      and remembering her a year later      whenContinue Reading

Appalachia Bare would like to wish everyone a Happy Holiday, Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year! Thank you to everyone who visited our site and read or viewed the contributions of some truly gifted individuals. We hope you find us worthy of further readership and exploration. We’re taking time offContinue Reading

I went to my mother’s grave last night, which was fitting, seeing as it was Mother’s Day, but that’s not why I went. I went because she was to be dug up in the morning. All of the graves at the Waldrop Memorial Cemetery, the ones not claimed and reburiedContinue Reading

Palatino kept her trail right along with me. She’s a good hound when she wants to be. At least to me not Brother. Brother says its cause we’re both girls. Says we both smell so good for good reason. I don’t pay him no mind, even though he’s telling theContinue Reading

A person cannot live in Appalachia or the South without experiencing “hillbilly music,” replaced in 1949 as “country music.” The familiar sonority, accompanied by a melodic, twangy dialect, echoes and reverberates across hills and hollers, flat lands and swamps. It surrounds just about every facet of the region and canContinue Reading

Privilege of Witness for Monica Thinking about driving following you up lamenting my skin that some queen isn’t going instead of me someone who knows what I can’t whose teeth clinched quiet too as white-armed answers, anemic, flew up when you, your answers perfect. Electric. You wear those goodly words.Continue Reading

    John Allyn Miller (1947 – 2007) lived in the Asheville area from the 1970s until 2002. He was an outdoorsman who loved being in nature, wandering backroads, trails, and streams in hopes of capturing the iconic beauty and images of Appalachia.   John taught photography at Asheville-Biltmore TechnicalContinue Reading

In the primeval forests of Appalachia, among the wildness, among the coal mines and their homegrown communities, waters flow. From mountain ridges these waters course and trickle into one another. Momentum from this continuum carves, molds, and sculpts ancient rock. Ever so slowly, water erodes away the lithology. Soluble mineralsContinue Reading