With the windows open at night, I heard trains. Even though the nearest tracks were some three miles away, their long, deep tones rolled across the Roanoke Valley. Cars riding the rails and the punctuation of locomotive whistles—these sounds took strange forms in my boyhood dreams. One night, they would morph into a growling beast. The next, they became the baseline to an imagined song.

Long Man is a new novel written and set in the Smoky Mountains. It tells the story of three days in the summer of 1936, when a government-built dam is beginning to flood an Appalachian valley and, in the midst of the rising waters, a little girl goes missing.
I have to admit that this all I know. I've not yet read the book. I can give you forty-two reasons why—busy blogging, have to read a bunch of other books for my MFA program, been planting shrubs, working on a novel of my own—but I don't want my literary slothfulness to stop you from learning about Long Man.
How about I let other reviewers tell you what they think:

"[Amy] Greene has taken the tale of a Tennessee town condemned by flooding and infused it with remorse and panic to produce an unusually poetic literary thriller." Ron Charles,The Washington Post
"The plot is simple but rich, and provides great suspense. One evening Annie Clyde’s husband, James, is trying to persuade her to accept the inevitable [flooding of their valley] and move to Detroit, but in the midst of their argument they notice that their 3-year-old daughter and her dog have disappeared. Annie Clyde saw Amos, the one-eyed drifter, in her field earlier that day and suspects he has taken her child. The hunt for Amos and the girl triggers conflict among the few remaining residents." Daniel Woodrell, The New York Times
"Two older sisters in town provide windows into the folkways about to be submerged, while a local police officer and TVA functionary represent the transformations to come, but Greene’s imagination is too fecund to make these characters mere symbols. Her novel fully inhabits the contradictions within each character and the ironies inherent in destroying a place in the name of progress...A smart and moody historical novel that evokes the best widescreen Southern literature. Kirkus

And here are some great quotes from the author herself:

“In my hometown, there’s Cherokee Lake. When the water goes down in the winter, you can see the tops of silos sticking out of the water. I remember when I was 9 or 10, I asked my mom what that was. She told me there was a town under Cherokee Lake. That was intriguing to me.” The Mountain Press
"When I went to Vermont [College low-residency program for writers], that's when I learned I was Appalachian. I had no idea I had an accent at all, but nobody could understand what I was saying. Everywhere I go, I take the mountains with me." Charleston City Paper
“I have a loyalty to this area. There is so much rich literary territory to mine.” The Mountain Press

Think you will you pick this book up? If so, any interest in writing a proper review for The Revivalist?
Guest posts are always welcome!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkBgkQPFkqA

Dolan Geiman likes to live in places where people were never meant to live. He was raised in a Civil War hospital in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley. His father converted the building into a livable space when he was young, setting a trend for Dolan.

When the artist struck out on his own, he moved to an abandoned warehouse in Stuarts Draft. Gutter punks were his housemates, and the streets of nearby Charlottesville served as a marketplace for his creations. It wasn't a bad setup at first, but then one person was stabbed in the sprawling warehouse he called home and then another. "It got kind of hectic," Dolan explains in the below interview, "I thought I better move out of there."
This time, the move was big, at least in one way. Dolan relocated all the way to Chicago, but he still ended up in another deserted warehouse. He turned this one into a live/work space that included a makeshift gallery, which served as a launchpad for his career.
Dolan's art sort of reflects this scrappy start. "I use a lot of found objects," he says, "but I don't use them for what they are. Like, I'll find a golf club and I'll cut it into thirty pieces and kind of rearrange those pieces, weld them together or tie them together and then nail them to a board or something like that...I'm not just taking something at its face value."
The result is remarkable. With nature themes drawn from his Blue Ridge childhood, his piece's are heartwarming yet unruly, like Dolan is some crazy quilter who decided that fabric just wasn't enough.

Inspecting his work, you'll find an old ruler fashioned into a bear's back and a revolver barrel made of bullets. This delightful mix has turned heads across the country. You can spot Dolan's art in a slew of restaurants, hotels, and resorts, along with YouTube's Chicago office. It's been featured in Fast Company, on HGTV House Hunters, and in daily papers from Detroit to Miami. It even shows up in movies, including the 2010 remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street, and let's be honest, when Freddie Cruger is splattering blood across your artwork, that's when you know you've really made it!
Ready to pick up one of Dolan's creations?
You can find them on his Etsy store and in shops across the country.
I'd love to hear which of his pieces is your favorite. And since Dolan is always looking for new ideas, what animal, person, or object would you like to see him make out of found materials next?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPmNoVmff_o

Dear literati,
I read this week that New York City bookstores are closing at an alarming rate. While I'm sorry to hear it, it can't be much of a surprise. With tiny retail spaces in Manhattan topping $10,000 a month, how many booksellers can afford to stay?
At the same time, I noticed a slew of writerly events—workshops and festivals—in the Southern Appalachians, and it got me to thinking. What if you all just moved down here?
[caption id="attachment_9467" align="alignright" width="208"] Lovers' Leap outside Chattanooga, Tennessee. Photo by Kay Gaensler on Flickr.[/caption]
I know. I know. It would be a big change. You'd give up skyscraper views and great public transit, but imagine all you'd get in exchange—waking with hazy, blue mountains right outside your door; watching a parade of wildlife—fox, deer, even bear—while you write; taking a mid-day break to swim at the base of a waterfall.
Even if you want an urban experience, we've got you covered. Asheville has gorgeous deco buildings and was named Beer City USA four years in a row. Roanoke has a world-class art museum, not to mention a bustling downtown with a daily farmers' market. Charlottesville has more restaurants per capita than nearly any city in the U.S. and an amazing book festival. Oh, I almost forgot Chattanooga; it's had bike-share for years, which I hear is all the rage in New York City.
Now, back to real estate. There's a giant deserted asylum in Staunton, Virginia (also home to a leading Shakespeare theater and a lively arts district.) I know it sounds a little strange, but the facility consists of breathtaking Georgian buildings that I bet would go for a song. With a little renovating, it could make a stand-out corporate campus for Harper Collins or Random House.
And all you Brooklyn hipsters, you're going to die when you see our old coal camps. Picture vintage wooden houses, each with a little porch, neighboring authentic, old-time storefronts. Can you imagine a better spot to open that apothecary-bar or cronut shop you've always wanted?
[caption id="attachment_9474" align="alignleft" width="276"] Tribal graffiti in Roanoke, Virginia. Photo by Jessica on Flickr.[/caption]
Here's the best part—you get all this charm and serious literary chops too. James Agee, Annie Dillard, Ron Rash, Barbara Kingsolver, Cormac McCarthy, Dorothy Allison, Charles Frazier, Thomas Wolfe—some of the world's best authors have called Appalachia home. Whatever you may have heard, we write and read a lot. What's more, we'd love to have you join us.
So how about it? Ready to dip your toe in the proverbial water?
The below events provide a perfect intro to Appalachian writers along with mountain living. If that's not enough, just ring me. I'm happy to show you around, and unlike those fancy moving concierges in New York, I'll do it for free.
See you soon!
Mark Lynn

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Western Carolina University Literary Festival, March 31-April 4: Let's start with Ron Rash. With multiple best sellers and an upcoming film based on his novel Serena, he may be Appalachia's hottest writer, and here's a chance to see him on his stomping ground. Alongside Jill McCorkle, a perennial New York Times Notable author, Ron will read and share writerly wisdom on the campus where he teaches.
[caption id="attachment_9476" align="alignright" width="220"] Tower of books in Asheville, North Carolina. Photo by Zen Sutherland on Flickr.[/caption]
Appalachian Writers' Workshop at Hindman Settlement School, July 27-August 1: Located at an historic center for Appalachian culture, this Kentucky workshop features Silas House, award-winning Appalachian writer and former NPR commentator. With sessions in poetry, fiction, memoir, and nonfiction, you're bound to find something you like, which might even include a spouse. Love bloomed for Pinckney and Laura Benedict (who might be called the first couple of Appalachian lit) when they met here in the 1980's, so why not for you?
Tinker Mountain Writers' Workshop, June 8-13: Want to ask Pinckney and Laura about their aforementioned romance? Here's the place to do it. Each year, they join other superb faculty members on the Hollins University campus, where they lead small group sessions of no more than 12 people each. Courses include advanced novel writing, getting unstuck, screenwriting, road stories, poetry, and more. The bonus prize is spending time in Appalachia's best kept secret—Roanoke, Virginia—my quirky, vintage sign obsessed, utterly charming hometown.
[caption id="attachment_9480" align="alignleft" width="289"] Malaprop's, a Guernica Editor's Pick bookshop in Asheville, North Carolina. Photo by Joe Schram on Flickr.[/caption]
Appalachian Young Writers' Workshop, June 22-28: Young talent will find its place here. Rising 10th through 12th graders and graduating seniors are invited to enjoy a week of writing and reflection at Tennessee's Lincoln Memorial University. Daily workshops will explore literature from the region and also our unique mountain environment, culture, and music. The session culminates in a lovely anthology of student work. 
Tennessee Mountain Writers' Annual Conference, April 3-5: This mountain gathering offers all the writerly advise you could want in fiction, poetry and nonfiction plus it boasts special sessions on the business of writing. Publisher Kate Larken will advise writers on editing and publishing while literary event planner Kathy Womack offers marketing tips. If that's not exciting enough, the conference is held in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, the once-secret city where fissionable plutonium, the main ingredient of nuclear bombs was pioneered. It will no doubt be (wait for it, wait for it) a blast!

Karen Tunnell didn't plan to become a quilt artist. As a student at the Atlanta College of Art (now part of Savannah College of Art and Design), she majored in painting and dabbled in other traditional mediums. It wasn't until after she graduated—when 1970s "back to the land" fervor took hold—that she found her true inspiration.
"I wanted to create a really different environment, a world made by hand; the Appalachian mountains were full of people doing just that," she told me in a recent interview. "For a young woman from Winter Park, Florida, it felt like a foreign country!"
[caption id="attachment_9164" align="alignright" width="249"] "My Boulders" by Karen Tunnell.[/caption]
Working as a traveling Head Start teacher, Karen visited families on hills and in hollers across Western North Carolina, and the one piece of art that she saw in nearly every home was a quilt.

"As many artists do, I started by studying the foundations and history of my chosen media—both painting and quilting."
Over time the two disciplines merged, revealing a new media that has won Karen worldwide recognition. She calls it "quilted painting," and as you'll learn in the below interview, it has led her to push the boundaries of what a quilt can mean.  

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TR: Karen, thanks for taking time to talk with me. When I saw your beautiful work, the first question that came to mind was "does she use these?" If we came to your house today, would we find one of these art pieces on your bed?

For some people, Super Bowl Sunday isn't about nacho plates and football jerseys, beer guzzling and fist pumps. Poet D. Gilson introduces us to one family whose darkest memories are bound to the day.
D. hails from the Ozarks—the Appalachians' nearest neighbor—and is a doctoral student in American Literature & Culture at The George Washington University. His chapbooks include Catch & Release, winner of the 2011 Robin Becker Prize for Queer Poetry, and Brit Lit, which—you guessed it—consists of poems about Britney Spears. With Will Stockton, his book Crush is forthcoming this March.

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My Mother Plays Telephone

by D. Gilson

 
Because my oldest brother Marty died
on Superbowl Sunday, my mother makes
 
the round of telephone calls, checking
in on all of her children. First Carla,
 
the Jehovah’s Witness who lives
outside Leavenworth with her ex-con fiancé,
 
Sam, who everyone calls — without knowing
why — Daddy Rex. Then my brothers
 
Randy and Mike, who she knows will be
busy before long, watching the game
 
with their wives and children, licking,
not wounds, but the residue of Kentucky
 
Fried Chicken — coincidentally, Marty’s
favorite food — off of their thumbs
 
and forefingers, short like my own,
fat sausage digits that protrude from
 
every man’s hands in our family,
these calls to her oldest three living
 
children made quick, out of some mix
of love and obligation — my mother’s
 
words, not mine — which is sometimes
the recipe for everything we bake
 
in this life. When Mom calls my sister
Jennifer next, she always tells her
 
the story of when Marty rescued her
from drowning at the Aurora Municipal
 
Swimming Pool, pulling her tiny body
out of the deep end and performing
 
mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, a story
that always ends the same way —
 
I don’t even know where he learned
CPR. Then our mother finally calls
 
me, her youngest, and she tells me, too,
of the time Marty saved my life. When
 
we drove home from the lake and a car
almost hit us head on, but in a split second
 
Marty swerved into the ditch beside
the county highway, totaling his blue Ford
 
pickup, leaving the two of us, brothers,
with only some scratches and sore necks.
 
And when she says this, I don’t tell her
my truth of the story. That I was only five
 
and Marty, twenty-three. That we had
been at the lake not as brothers,
 
but as meth dealers. That Marty was
drunk. That he fell asleep at the wheel.
 
That I reached across the pickup’s cab
and grabbed it, sending us into
 
the ditch, yes, but not saving him, really,
not doing the thing none of us can.

With the clock ticking, I still have blank spots in my Christmas list, and I just discovered a gift that could fill the last of them. The Mountain Came Aliveis a stand-out, new album from West Virginia storyteller Adam Booth. With an innovative mix of spoken words and songs, Booth covers a year in the life of an old, Appalachian mountain—its final year. The mountain is slated to be destroyed as part of a mining operation.
Booth developed an itch to merge traditional music with current issues while touring the country, telling stories. "I found that there were a lot of young folks who didn’t know quite know what Appalachia was," he said, "So I tried to put a lot of folk elements into this and also a lot of contemporary elements into it.”
The result is magical. The album opens with a nearly five-minute piece that celebrates all the creatures who call the mountain home. From hemlock to swirling vines to baby opossum to insects to fish and birds to people with different jobs and appearances and beliefs—they're all there, and they remind us just how much life one mountain can support. It's an inspiring opening that makes the rest of the story that much more heartbreaking.
In terms a child could understand and an adult can appreciate, Booth conveys the complexity behind mountain top removal. "Deep inside the mountain there are precious things that have high value, and there are some people who want to get at these precious things," he recites during "News Comes to the Mountain," and he continues with a simple line that shows the other side of this important issue. "But on top of the mountain, there are precious things that have high value too."
Following in the steps of children's art classics like the cartoon A Charlie Brown Christmas, Shel Silverstein's book The Giving Tree, and the film The Red Balloon, Booth delivers powerful messages by presenting them in understated terms, and during this season of caring, he manages to remind us that all life—our species and every other—deserves our love and caring.
Here's a sample with lovely crazy quilt graphics. What do you think? Will The Mountain Came Alive fill some blanks on your Christmas list too?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1oaQXsbj8M&feature=player_embedded#at=24
* Thanks to West Virginia Public Broadcasting for contributing content to this post.

I don't need more stuff. My house is fully furnished. My closet is overflowing. My car is paid off. Okay, I'd like a mountain cabin, but that's not exactly going to fit under the tree. For all intents and purposes, I have everything I need, and a lot of my family and friends are in the same boat.
That's why I've begun giving more and more experiential gifts. For instance, I gave my partner Ryan a Bob Ross class a while back. Remember Bob, the soothing, fro-haired painting genius from PBS?
He passed away years ago, but his unique "wet on wet" technique is still taught at craft stores across the country. Ryan would have never bought this for himself. For that matter, he'd never outright admit that he liked it—like a perpetual teen, he's too cool to gush over anything—but even he came home with a repressed smile and a lovely winter scene complete with "happy little trees."
Once you start exploring experiential gifts, the options are endless—from classical concerts to deep water fishing trips—but my new favorites are mountain-themed. All across the Appalachian South, cultural centers and local programs help keep our heritage alive. Many offer classes that are unique to our corner of the world.
Know someone who loves the sound of the fiddle? Think you have a repressed soap-stone sculpture on your list? Know any avid hikers who could bone up on their survival skills?
Then check out these Appalachian-based options. They will bring a slice of our regional heritage right into your holiday season, and, bonus prize, they'll save you money on gift wrap!
Also, we're dying to know—have you ever given an experiential gift? If so, what was it, and how did it turn out?

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Cowan Creek Music School, Whitesburg, Kentucky: Hailing from the land of Loretta Lynn, this one-of-a-kind school draws on the deep musical traditions of Eastern Kentucky. Banjo and fiddle classes dominate—ranging from beginner to advanced—but other instruments are in the mix, including the mandolin and, one of my favorites, the mountain dulcimer. Also, don't miss the Monday workshops. Every week, the school hosts a ballad swap, a flatfooting lesson, and a local field trip.
Mountain Shepherd Wilderness Survival School, Catawba, Virginia: Know someone who missed out on scouting as a kid? Here's your chance to help him or her make up for it. Mountain Shepherd's survival courses cover everything from wilderness first aid to building a fire in the pouring rain. It's held in beautiful Catawba, Virginia, just outside Roanoke, and it is the only experiential gift that might keep your loved ones alive in the case of a bear attack.
John C. Campbell Folk School, Brasstown, North Carolina: Before there was a knitting revival or Etsy, there was the John C. Campbell Folk School. For more than 80 years, this Appalachian institution has kept folk traditions alive. Courses range from the merely traditional—like clogging and hand-forging knives—to the truly obscure. Anyone up for spinning yak hair?
Clifton Forge School of the Arts, Clifton Forge, Virginia:Nestled among Virginia's Blue Ridge Mountains, the Clifton Forge School of the Arts offers a full range of classes, from painting to music, with many drawing from our regional traditions. The sculpture class, for example, uses stones from the only soapstone quarry in the U.S., which happens to be right outside Charlottesville. The stone's distinctive grey finish has become a signature look for Blue Ridge sculpture.

If you've ever sang to The Sound of Music or teared up at the end of It's a Wonderful Life or danced in the aisles during Rocky Horror Picture Show, then run—right now—and get your wallet, because it's all over at 11:04 a.m. eastern time on Sunday, November 3, 2013. That's when The Kickstarter campaign to save the Historic Lewis Theatre in Lewisburg, West Virginia will end, and the stakes couldn't be higher.
If donations reach $39,000, the theatre will use the funds plus all profits from recent years to convert to digital projectors, an essential move since film is being phased out by the movie industry. If the campaign is even $1 shy of its goal, the theatre gets nothing, zilch, $0 and will be forced to close its doors.
As of posting time, about 16 hours before the campaign ends, the Lewis Theatre needs just another $1,707. You can rest assured that your donation will really make a difference. Even $5 can help save this slice of history, which started 74 years ago as a vaudeville theatre.
In return for your generous gift, you'll receive one-of-a-kind rewards—ranging from your name in lights on the big screen to a private film party for you and 100 of your friends—and, of course, the best reward of all, knowing that you helped this institution reach its 75th year.
Read also: https://www.buydlp.com/best-mini-projector-under-100/
UPDATE: The theatre exceeded its goal! Movie buffs gave $39,330 to save this gem.

For someone who doesn't have any children or even a readily available womb, I've been thinking a lot about birth. I've hit that age when friends reproduce like mosquitos after a rainstorm. No, seriously, I could paper my bathroom with the birth announcements, but that's just one reason that reproduction is on my mind.
Mostly it's because I'm writing about it. In addition to blog posts, I'm trying my hand at a novel, and it opens with a birth. Without giving anything away, I can tell you that it doesn't go well, and for my protagonist, a young mountain woman named Reenie, it opens up a world of questions. What do you do when life takes a very bad turn? What happens when you're overflowing with love but have no where to direct it? How far will you go to get your nurturing fix?
That's why Carrie Mullins' Cell-Life resonates with me. This compelling short story, published in Appalachian Heritage, brings us Marie, a young, Kentucky mother-to-be whose home life is a mess. On the verge of childbirth, she hasn't even gotten a crib (her deadbeat husband jokes about keeping the baby in a dresser drawer), but she has latched onto a strange notion—cryo-freezing her placenta and umbilical cord. She calls it insurance, figuring the cells could be used to treat a host of diseases.
Is this obsession an attempt to bring stability to her unborn child's life or just a bad decision?
I hope you'll leave a comment and let us know what you think.

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CELL-LIFE

by Carrie Mullins

Every time Bobo gave Marie money to buy groceries or notebooks or what- ever, she saved a little bit of it. She put it in her purse, into a red and white tin that used to hold mints. She kept a ponytail holder around the tin for a while, then took it off, because someone might wonder what was in a tin with a purple band around it in her purse. Someone might want to take that purple band off and open the tin to see what was inside.
In the early morning when no one was at the house and there was no danger of anyone coming to see Bobo, she counted the money. She counted it on the bed. Mostly ones and fives she stacked around her there on the bumpy white bedspread that had belonged to Bobo’s great aunt.
She counted seventy-two dollars, plus the hundred-dollar bill her Dad had put in her hand that day. She straightened the stacks, put them on top of each other until there was one big stack that she folded over and put it into the tin, closed it up and shoved it down into the bottom of the black purse. She pulled out the pamphlet from one of the zipper pockets on the side of the purse. She always looked at it after she counted the money. It helped to keep her mind focused. Every time she read it, she saw some- thing new. This time she learned that the cryo-bank was in California. Part of her would be frozen way out west, part of her baby too. She told herself she could do it.
When Crystal came over that evening, Marie finally told her about the placenta and umbilical cord bank. She even showed her the pamphlet. Crystal’s eyebrow went up. “So what is the purpose of this?”
“They freeze it for you, and keep it, in case your baby gets a disease and needs those cells.”
“Sounds gross.” She handed the pamphlet back to Marie.
“It’s not gross. It’s like insurance.” Marie wanted to explain all the diseases the frozen cells could be used against, to treat her baby, if she needed it.
“Bobo doesn’t know about this, does he?”
Marie shook her head.
“Well it might be a scam. Have you thought about that?” Crystal shook her head and sat Marie down with a piece of paper. Crystal made a list of what she’d need for the baby. Blankets, pajamas, bottles, a car seat and a stroller. “I’ll have you a baby shower,” Crystal said when they finished. There weren’t but two or three people in Crawford to invite, just Janie and Ed’s witch of a girlfriend. Marie didn’t want to sit around with them. She didn’t want to taste baby food straight from the jar and try to figure out what it was. She didn’t want to play that other game where you have to guess what kind of candy bar was melted in a diaper. She didn’t want to sit there while Crystal’s moon-faced girls watched, those girls who only moved when Crystal told them to, moved like silent, moon-faced drones. But she’d do it, for the baby.
“What are you making for supper tonight?” Crystal opened the refrigerator, then looked at Marie, who shrugged.

CONTINUE READING

You don't have to go far to find handmade crafts in the Appalachian South. Just swing by your church basement or local farmers market at the right time, and you'll spot crocheted snowflakes, "God bless this mess" signs, and corn husk dolls aplenty.
Everyday crafts like these are real treats--I, for one, cover my tree with crocheted snowflakes at Christmas--but they're just the start for regional artists. Gifted potters, metal smiths, and painters are tucked into hollers and holed up on hillsides across the region, and their work can be harder to find.
[caption id="attachment_8416" align="alignright" width="162"] Pottery by Alex Matisse[/caption]
That's why the 66th Annual Craft Fair of the Southern Highlands is such a treat. It starts July 18, 2013 in Asheville, North Carolina. For four days, it will feature products from some of the region's most talented artists. Clay, metal, wood, jewelry, fiber, paper, natural materials, leather and mixed media--it's all there, some of the best crafts our region has to offer, all at a rock bottom price. Admission is just $8 for adults and free for youngins under age 12.
As if that's not enough, you can also catch first-rate, live demonstrations. Flyfishing expert Sam Johnson of Dahlonega, Georgia will teach you how to make bamboo rods. You can learn to sculpt using found objects like can lids, spark plugs, and clay shards from John Richards of Burnsville, North Carolina. Even kids can do craft activities with the good folks from Arts For Life, a group that supports children and young adults facing serious illnesses.
Toss in a great line-up of live mountain music, and you have the perfect excuse for a long weekend in Asheville. All of this comes thanks to The Southern Highland Craft Guild, which has been a haven for mountain craftspeople since 1930.
[caption id="attachment_8418" align="alignleft" width="530"] Weaver at 1948 Craft Fair.[/caption]

About a year and a half ago, I stumbled across one of the most heartwarming, tearjerking, relatable things I'd ever read. It was an essay on leaving home and longing for it. After wiping my eyes dry, I did what any true fan would do. I cyber-stalked the author. Google told me a lot about Jason Headley. He published an Appalachian novel when he was in his twenties. He lives in San Francisco and makes hilarious short films. He wrote some great commercials for Ancestry.com and did the voiceovers. And he used to be in a rock band. What it didn't tell me is that Jason is seriously good people. I wouldn't find that out until I contacted him and asked to repost his essay--"Dear West Virginia." Jason responded right away and was completely game for running the piece at no charge. He even offered to forward my site along to a few friends. If you've been reading The Revivalist for a while, you know what happened next. More than 70,000 people read "Dear West Virginia" in the first few weeks after it ran. The Roanoke Time and the Charleston Daily Mail wrote articles about it. And hundreds and hundreds of people commented on it. What you may not know is that Jason read each and every comment and personally replied to many of them. He even met up with a young West Virginian who'd just moved to San Francisco and contacted Jason after reading his essay. "I would have killed to know somebody, anybody, when I first moved out here," Jason told me at the time, "So maybe I can help him somehow." That's just the kind of feller Jason is, and that's why I was so excited to catch up with him this week. I found out that he has some big ideas for helping the West Virginia economy and a new viral hit on his hands.

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TR: Jason, thanks for taking the time to talk. Let's flashback about a year and a half. My head still spins when I think back to the response to "Dear West Virginia." What did you think when it went it first viral? JH: It was really unexpected. It’s kind of a long piece as far as the internet is concerned. And it had already been on another site as a guest post. But for some reason, people found it and started sharing it with one another. Then there was such an outpouring of love for West Virginia in the comments and emails I started getting. It was beautiful. TR: Did the response affect your relationship with your home state? JH: Writing it affected my relationship for sure. There’s power in words. In putting the right words in the right order to reflect your most complex emotions. When I finished writing that one, I knew I had done something important for myself, whether anyone ever read it or not. But the response did make me feel a bit more connected to West Virginia, even from so far away. I’ve always been an advocate for the state. But it was really great to suddenly realize I was a member of a team of ambassadors. And that we’re everywhere. TR: And the essay connected you to the Hollow documentary team that was shooting down in McDowell County, right? I just ran a post on the beautiful interactive site they put up. What did you do with them, and how was it? JH: I was probably the most ancillary member of the Hollow team. I went down to McDowell last summer for a few days to get a sense of the place and the project. I’d never been. Growing up in the northern panhandle, there was never much reason to go farther south than Charleston. That’s the funny thing about West Virginia. It’s a relatively small state, but it’s shaped funny and the mountains make for some real journeys getting from one part to the next. So there are parts I’d never seen. McDowell being one of them. Anyway, I went down there, got to spend some time with [Hollow director] Elaine McMillion and some other members of the team. Then later I did a little bit of writing for the project. Small things here and there. I was just a resource whenever they needed it. But they really didn’t. It’s just an incredibly impressive group of folks on that project. Very inspiring. TR: Now Elaine McMillion is focusing on brain drain, where young people pour out of rural areas for college and jobs never to return. What would West Virginia be like if that pattern flipped and all its native children moved back home? JH: If I were the governor of West Virginia, I would immediately explore the feasibility of some sort of reverse Homestead Act. If you’ve been away from West Virginia for X number of years, if you have a certain level of education, if you have work experience in certain industries, we encourage you to come home by offering land, tax holidays, etc. There are so many West Virginians out there who would love to come home. I think if you gave them an offer they can’t refuse, they might find a way to bring their innovation, entrepreneurialism, creativity, and hard work home to create a new economy. TR: And since Hollow is all about hope and solutions, I should ask you--what do you think can help the folks back home? JH: Jobs. There are more complexities to it, but it pretty much boils down to jobs. Of course, they’re not going to be the jobs that West Virginians once knew. The mines and the plants are never going to support communities the way they did. Never. Thinking otherwise is like being a horse and buggy man who says this automobile fad will never last. I was in Fayetteville last summer and it was really inspiring to see what they’re doing there. So much beauty, recreation, tourism. A lot of money comes through that part of the state. Good money. Happy money. It could be a real look at what West Virginia could become. TR: So writing viral hits aside, what other creative projects do you have going on? JH: Well, I went viral again recently. I’ve been making short films, working up to making a feature film. And a 90-second short called “It’s Not About the Nail” went bananas out there. [See film below.] We’re at 5 million views in just a month. It’s led to people checking out my other work. Led to meetings in some very nice offices in LA. I just happened to be down there last week, on West Virginia’s 150^th birthday. So in each meeting, I wished people a happy West Virginia Day. That was funny. TR: Sounds like you're busy and happy in California, but you know what everyone is wondering. When are those country roads taking you home? JH: I’ll be there in a couple of weeks. Going back to see my folks. To get a nice taste of summer, see some lightning bugs, maybe a thunderstorm, eat some good food from my Pap’s garden. I try to get back once a year. It means more to me as I get older. http://vimeo.com/66753575