Hello Reader. I hope everyone had a lovely holiday season. We have all filed away 2022 and welcomed a bright new 2023. For this new year, Appalachia Bare plans to continue our endeavor to present quality content, to be a venue for Appalachian creativity, and to offer works about Appalachian history.
I’ve learned so many things as Chief Editor of Appalachia Bare. I’ve often said this undertaking is a labor of love. That’s true. I love my work. I love editing and research. I love creating pages for each article.
One thing 2022 taught me, however, is what I plan to do doesn’t always come to fruition. Life brings something quite different. So, in this little poke, I’ll only pull out several little play pretties. In other words, I’ll only reveal certainties. What Appalachia Bare hopes 2023 will bring:
- More remarkable creative content from Appalachians
- More historical content about Appalachia
- A better community links page
- A better Instagram
- Tidbits of information on our new ticker
- More Appalachia Bare videos
- “Capturing Appalachia” photography contest winners
- Book reviews from the editors
- The continuing Daugherty saga
- Food, preserving, and canning articles
- A few feuds and scandals here and there
So, please enjoy and join our efforts this year. Subscribe if you’d like. Submit if you’d like. We take submissions all year. And tell others about us. A great deal of our readership comes from word-of-mouth.
Our ultimate goal for this site is to represent a true Appalachia, one where we tell our own stories. For hundreds of years, we have been misrepresented by others. We must tell and preserve our stories. Do we have sordid tales? Yes. Do we have scoundrels in our line? Yes. But we also have warm tales, heroes, and heroines. Let’s embrace these stories, our ancestors, our people, and be proud to tell their tales. After all, they helped make us. So many of our stories — our oral histories — are buried with our ancestors. Future generations should know their history, know from where and whom they came, and understand we are all beautiful, bright, talented, exceptional, wise people.
And only we can tell our truth.
**Featured image of my pixie cut.
Hello Ms. Anderson,
I read your Editor’s Poke today and thought I’d send a comment. I grew up near Copperhill, Tennessee across the State line in North Carolina in a community known as Hiwassee Dam. I’ve been working on a memoir, and this has led me to do some more study about the region in which I grew up. I read the article by Edward Francisco on “Copperhill – A Legacy” and was much interested in his story. Maybe sometime in the future I could share some of my work if you would be interested. Now that I am older, I appreciate more my roots as a child of Southern Appalachia and the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains.
Looking forward to another great year.
Here’s to another wonderful year of excellent writing! Thank you.