Elizabeth Catte, “What You Are Getting Wrong About Appalachia” (Belt Publishing, 2018)

Welcome to the new book's network. I am your host, Joel Churning. One of the major issues with current events in the media is the desire to package concepts into a homogeneous story that largely ignores anything outside the established norm. This is definitely the case with how Appalachia is seen by many. In her book, what you are getting wrong about Appalachia, Elizabeth Cat not only breaks down this stereotype by presenting a more nuanced picture of the region, but also shows that the people who live there value their heritage and work to make their lives and the lives of others better. Welcome Elizabeth Cat. Hi Elizabeth, thanks for talking with me and know you've been incredibly busy and I'm glad we found the time. Hey, I'm so happy to talk to you today. Now your book interested in me for a number of reasons. One of my personal areas of research is media, both historical and current. You definitely had interesting points to say about how both print and mass media covers Appalachia. However, I also was interested since I live in Northeastern Kentucky right on the Ohio and West Virginia borders. I've seen many of the issues that media discuss when they talk about the area, but I also know there are many things that don't fit into their accepted narrative and isn't covered. For example, right now we're right in the middle of the West Virginia teacher strike and as we're recording this and it's still not getting the coverage that I think it deserves. So that's one of the other reasons I thought this was a pretty good time to talk. But let's talk about your background, what's your educational and other experiences that particularly made this topic so important to you? So my education is I'm a public historian of a PhD in public history is just kind of a different variety of history. It's mainly geared towards helping the public use history in their day-to-day lives in ways that are richer, fuller, and more useful to them. I'm from East Tennessee, which is I like to say that I'm from Dali Parton country so that helps people place me in the world. I've lived in Appalachia almost my entire life. I've had dips in another region for employment or for school but I consider myself a native. My family's lived in the region for several generations. So that's me and that's why it was important for me to start writing about Appalachia. It's funny because I actually was born and raised in Cleveland so I know the rust belt. But for the last years I've been in Appalachia first in Alabama although that was very different from what I'm experiencing here in Kentucky. Well people confuse Appalachia and the rust belt all the time. Of course there are places where they do overlap like Pittsburgh and some of the places in Ohio are good examples of that. But people don't have great geography when it comes to deciphering the key differences between our regions and of course politics makes that even more complicated. To say nothing of the fact is that one of the things in this was before I really started looking in Appalachia when I was in Alabama when I first moved there we discovered quite quickly all the concepts that the North just didn't understand the South were true. Talking to family and thinking that we were down in who knows what in rural everything was just dirt roads and stuff just completely flew through you because you just never saw it to you actually lived in it and saw how people reacted sometimes. So I'm seeing some of the same things here. So the book what led you to decide it was time to write this book? I know it was it started in some ways as a out of growth of the election the presidential election of 2016 but there is obviously more to it than just that. So but what led you to decide that this was something you wanted to write? Well actually the decision was kind of made for me. What happened was I had written a couple of blog posts and I'd gone on Twitter rants and this that and the other about the narrative that was forming around the 2016 election and the popularity of Hillbilly L.A.G. and I was contacted by Andrew Beck who is the director the founder of belt publishing which is based in Ohio and she was experiencing a lot of the frustrations that I was experiencing but particular to the rust belt. So she was frustrated with parachute journalism she was frustrated with being you know original voice and at a time that regional voices were being ignored and so we decided to I suppose let those frustrations go out live out in the world a little bit more boldly and so she asked me if I'd be interested in writing these thoughts that I was putting out a blog or you know on social media into more of an essay collection and I said sure and we worked it out very quickly and I honestly thought that you're probably a year and a half after the election that some of the material that I wrote about would seem dated even though we rushed to get the book out as quickly as possible but the surprising thing is that is they don't and we're still seeing like weird narratives about Trump country in the election in Appalachia. Now it's a little bit different since we're having the teacher's strike but we still see also JD Vance all over the news and you know speculation about his potential run for politics or just the you know the philanthropy that he is starting and his engagement in the rust belt. So every you know almost everything that I wrote about that frustrated me a year and a half ago is still around. That's not a surprise unfortunately most narratives take a long time to break. I recently interviewed someone who wrote a book about the film Thelma Louise and of course at the time the big issue with when that movie came out was women being empowered in Hollywood and that movie didn't exactly happen right away so it's interesting that the topic is coming up again but as you we see the narrative is tough to break. So yeah exactly no no no I was just going to concur absolutely. We have some really kind of enduring narratives in Appalachia and I think you're right that maybe my surprise you know is a little not even but I'm also and you have you know perspective on this but the media is particularly fast paced now more fast paced than it used to be certainly and it feels like any kind of narrative or take that is produced generates almost a counter-take quite quickly so in that regard I think it is a little bit surprising that the narrative of Appalachia has endured in the way that it has so we shall see we shall see the narrative of the teacher strike as we just already talked about might be something that causes it to flip. Well and that's where your book is interesting because it is starting to I have seen more and more publicity of it outside of the more obvious places and I think you even had a little bit of a blurb in the New Yorker of all places so maybe that will help to maybe we can have this discussion on a wider frame and I think those of us who live in this area have to do our part to make sure that it continues to be a discussion rather than sure the the stereotypes and everything like that. So the book as you said it was it was not a rush but it was certainly done quickly and I think the nice thing is that it's it's it's just well developed as a clear what your points are and you have lots of evidence and frankly one of the things I'm going to mention later is your list of resources in the back which I found there those are the things that I'm going to be coming back to to say okay what else do I want to read and what else do I need to see and so that that alone showed the depth of the information that you were able to use to help you with some of this but your objectives according to the way I read it was first off who benefits from the emission of the real story or the company complete story of the area in but a second more positive thing to try to celebrate the people the lives of the people who were in this area and over time and and currently do I sort of have that pretty much correct. Yeah absolutely you know when it's important to understand that this book although it speaks to specific narratives it's not about one particular person and it's not about one particular moment in time it's about a pattern of abusive power that seems to circulate in the region that means it is for example much easier to get rich talking about me as an Appalachian talking about Appalachians that it is for Appalachians to invest in themselves if that makes sense so for example you know JD Vance has enormous speaking fees we did some calculations of his speaking fees and kind of figured out that he makes more in one hour than it costs to you know finance my entire the entire cost of my PhD so I want to comment on that kind of power but outside of that to push back and to celebrate the lives and actions of people who have lived in the region, people who self-identify. Appalachian who brought activism, radical engagement to the region to do harm reduction, to protect the environment, to protect labor. Yeah, and you talk about a lot of that particular, or the third part of the book, where you, that's the part where you really are doing the celebration and some of the things you talk about there and some of the things I've found and turns out they were things that you've mentioned and such as WMMT, for example, and the work they do to get to be, to be a different voice and a voice that's definitely needs to be heard out of this area. So the first book, part of the book, besides after the introduction you then get into your three parts of the book and part one, Appalachian, the Making of Trump Country, which I did a lot of looking into other things after I read through your points because you know, obviously you made some very good points about the mistake or the this narrative that somehow, if it wasn't for Appalachia, Trump wouldn't have been elected president. Right. That is yeah, that's one of the weirdest, I mean, what I would explain to people is that Appalachians were certainly on the bus that were, it was about to crush the country into the wall that is Donald Trump, but they weren't driving it. And this is you know, something that needs to be acknowledged, not from a defensive position, but just one that adds so much needed nuance to the way that we understand politics. For example, the you know, the big objection I have to that narrative is we need to understand certain things about the relationship between voting and civic engagement and poverty. And that is, you know, the closer you are to poverty, especially when you have additional burdens like legal legal issues or addiction, the less likely you are to vote or to participate in civic engagement. So to present a region and keep in mind, it wasn't that they were going to places like Knoxville, Tennessee, Appalachian city where I'm from that's quite urban, that there's a good, there's a there's a mix of sort of demographics and income distribution levels. They were going reporters from mainstream outlets were going to the poorest places in Apple and Appalachia, particularly in Southern West Virginia, which is historically West Virginia's coal fields. So they were going to these places to produce a political phenomenon to say like this is what is driving the bus and it just doesn't square with everything that we know about the relationship between poverty and voting behavior and indeed the results post election or that out. Right, you gave some statistics that showed the percentage of people who voted at all was so small and then you can, I mean, just looking at a map as I did afterwards where I looked at the electoral map for the 2016 election and I said, okay, yeah, there's red all the way through the Apple Action areas. But what about all this red up north and all this red in the Midwest where there's a lot more electoral votes and therefore why don't they get the quote unquote blame for Trump? Right, well, if you're somebody who cares about politics, so I do political organizing as well, these things matter to you. So it matters to me if I'm trying to work with a community and I'm dealing with people who voted for Trump. I'm dealing with people who voted for Clinton or I'm dealing with people who just didn't vote at all. That makes a tremendous difference to the way that I want to strategize with that community or strategize about that community and the situation in many parts of Appalachia, but particularly these parts that appeared over and over in the media as the heart of Trump country, the narrative more accurately is they are I didn't vote country. And so when you know when I am thinking about different ways to increase civic engagement, things of that nature, that story and what those numbers are distilled from you know these percentages and manipulations matter a lot to me. Right, and like I say it's just it's it's become a regional you know that somehow this region is the reason and of course that's nothing new unfortunately from some of the discussion. And in fact much of the introduction and the first part is it gives a nice historical background of the area including how it became a political or economic structure and you meant you talk an introduction about the the the organization that supposedly decides you know that that lists who's in considered an Appalachia and I think I just did that where I said it twice two different ways but in including areas that didn't want to be identified as part of Appalachia. Right, so I live in I'm not from this area but I currently live in the Shenandoah Valley, Virginia and this is like one foot and one foot out of Appalachia because Appalachia had to be created as a specific entity and that occurred in 1965 through an organization called the Appalachian Regional Commission that was created as part of a collection of efforts that fall under the umbrella of the war on poverty. So you know they had to define and of course they they use you know cultural or historical or geographical geographic boundaries too but but primarily they're like okay so these are the you know Appalachia is poverty and poverty is Appalachia and so some areas like the Shenandoah Valley I just didn't want to be any kind of part of that they didn't want to be identified as you know the poor parts of the United States so they opted out so it's complicated defining Appalachia is complicated but what we do have is that that enduring imprint that poverty is defined by a region and a people and that's us. Right yeah I lived in Birmingham in Alabama which is boy excuse me is Jefferson County which based on the ARC information is part of Appalachia but it doesn't have the same feeling for example as you might as you pointed out like Knoxville being more urban and that's the way Birmingham is but you get a little bit farther away and it becomes a more obvious where here in Kentucky it's it's much more clear that it's you know what is more of the stereotype of what Appalachia is. Yeah and most people I mean we kind of geographically define Appalachia is three regions you know southern central and northern Appalachia so 90% of what I talk about our discuss is going to be central Appalachia which is you know the more mountainous parts of Appalachia where the majority of cool communities used to be and so that's you know that's my that's my Appalachia but there are many different Appalachias that people identify or connect to as well. Right so when you discuss the background or the history of the area and I really did appreciate that it was a nice it's only a few pages but it really did that kind of background is I think helpful for anybody that wants to learn more about Appalachia in the first place and you go all the you go back to where the narratives first start including Hatmeat the most obvious example was the Hatfield McCoy feud which is still you know it's one of those things that Appalachia still is is saddled with. Yeah we have some very I mean we have very enduring narratives of Appalachia my argument is that so many of these these narratives are attached to the ways that powerful people wanted to make money you know from the region they wanted to extract resources they wanted to bring the local populations into a compliant labor force and so myths and stereotypes really help them really help them in that they presented Appalachians is sort of doomed without intervention as you know our poverty was something that was innate that was you know attached to our culture to our moral character so that when they came along with mines and mills and coal camps it would made it easier for them to make the case that they were bringing something benevolent to the region modern capitalism modern employment that would benefit the people who lived there who would be doomed to be you know sort of savage otherwise and you know the Hatfield McCoy is probably the Hatfield McCoy feud is probably one of the best examples of that because it was a real you know it was a real historic event that occurred but it became so legendary because it really did a lot to sell central Appalachia particularly West Virginia in Kentucky as a you know a place that was you know full of bloodshed savagery things like that made it easier that the reach made it easier to make the case that the region needed order law modern you know modern modernity and progress and that's the next part that comes in with what you were what you discussed in this background is that the so-called paternal aspect of these moguls who move in just because they want the resources but know they need people to do the work so it suddenly becomes this narrative that these folks need to be taken care of that they need somebody to take care of them and that they don't know any better and so we have to go in and and care for them but also as you say get lots of work out of them right and those narratives aren't specific to Appalachia people had those attitudes powerful people which people had those attitudes and beliefs about many demographics and poor people it just happened that you know the resources work that they wanted were concentrated in this one particular place so the narratives in geos geography and myths work together in a way that's a little bit unique, but it's also important to for people to understand this is social Darwinism, these are attitudes that were deployed aggressively against all people who were poor or different. And unfortunately they were able to use those narratives to always, you know, for their benefit almost 100% and even though they said they were helping others, it wasn't like it really was happening because strikes did happen and they're not that long ago even. And so people started to figure out that they weren't necessarily being taken care of and needed to possibly try to take care of themselves. Right, the system of labor that outsiders brought and compliant local elites helped with is hugely exploitive. People rarely worked for wages, they would work for credit that they could use to buy provisions that'll, you know, a company store, things like that. Armed guards, populated coal camps, so any kind of whiff of strike action or labor organizing, you know, you would potentially get shot. They would menace coal company guards with menace wives, menace children with machine guns. It was a very, very dangerous environment. It was a coercive environment and that resulted in, you know, as we just said, some of the most important strikes and industrial actions of the 20th century. But it also meant that when things started to change when the coal industry started to wane or is starting to started to wane, the people who were obviously going to be the most affected were the workers and unfortunately, there's still being led to believe that if it wasn't just for that federal government and their restrictions, we could still have coal going and you could still have jobs. Yeah, coal industry public relations is incredibly complicated and coal industry propaganda starts at a very young age. For example, Friends of Coal, which is a coal lobby group that's particularly active in Kentucky and West Virginia, you know, gets into the schools, you know, as early as the kindergarten level and tries to plant a narrative of what coal is and what coal does in this alternate history of the relationship between coal and the environment and labor in Appalachia. But it's, I mean, we've, it's important to understand there's never been a rosy picture of coal in Appalachia. It's always been accompanied with strife and coercion and, you know, oppressive labor labor environments. It's, I mean, it's generally true that, what can I say about that? So coal in Appalachia has always been sort of artificially deflated in terms of price because we have a, we produce a very expensive type of coal here. So the difference is made up with workers wages and things like that. So people have always been working for very cheap so that the coal producers can sell the coal more cheaply and compete with other markets like in the, in the West and in Midwest. And so that creates this really unhealthy cycle where either coal is in tension with the worker or coal is in tension with the, you know, in later in our history, the environment, such as things like mountain top removal. But there's always tension between, between coal and the people or coal and the environment. And it shifts a lot. So sometimes it's hard to see. And of course, things like mountain top removal have changed the way that we think about coal a lot in the way that labor, the relationship between labor and coal. Because what we have now in modern Appalachia is, it takes very little labor to mine coal comparatively to other, other points in our history. It's mechanized, automated. It's, it is competing with other forms of energy, such as natural gas. So we're looking at the functional end of coal. I think most people would agree within about 50 years. Yeah, I took a geology course to take care of a mate, I don't know, elective and undergrad. And one of the things the instructor consistently talked about is that, you know, these non-renewable resources are finite. And we will reach a point where they will all be basically gone. And coal just happens to probably be one of the first to go. Right. But when we acknowledge that it's also important to think about, well, what will be next for the region after the functional end of coal, it's not like there's a lot of interest politically into developing clean energy strategies for Appalachia. More likely what will happen is that powerful people connected to the coal industry are also connected to oil and natural gas. And so the region will just be recycled into a fracking hub. Because, and you might know this based on where you live, but there's, you know, so many kind of shell deposits, especially near the Ohio Valley. And so coal 2.0 is probably just going to be you know, fracked gas. And this is something that we also see in the history of Appalachia is that we get to the end of a certain type of extraction and we celebrate. And then something much worse comes along. So we had, you know, extractive coal mining that just through that, you know, the through mines. And then we had strict mining, which was bad. And then mountain top removal came along. And now the functional end of coal will probably be a replacement for fracking, which again doesn't solve any of the problems that we had specific to the coal industry. But as you say, the powerful people are in charge, including how much, I mean, what I'm pretty sure with the governor of West Virginia, was he a coal magnate? I forgot. Oh gosh. Yeah. I mean, he's a billionaire from the coal industry. Joe Manchin, who is the, you know, the democratic senator from West Virginia, who's gotten rich off the coal industry too. It's really hard to find politicians in Appalachia that are independent from energy markets and energy in coal and gas and and those kinds of markets. Yeah. And even in your introduction at the very beginning, when you talk about your brief living in Texas, you gave an ex, you know, that's oil, but it's, there were a lot of similarities to the the fact of the matter is the people were getting rich and the people who were suffering because of that is are always going to end up being the people and the illnesses that are in Appalachia. Maybe are different from the illnesses in Texas, but they're still illnesses. Yeah. Exactly. My time living in Texas has made me very concerned for the future of Appalachia, particularly an idea. I don't know if you remember, but Donald Trump just signs back in November, I think, a multi billion dollar memorandum of understanding with a Chinese energy company. And that was to set in motion plans and development that would turn West Virginia into an oil and gas hub. Much like the Gulf Coast of Texas, because of course, as we learned recently with Hurricane Harvey, but also natural disasters in the years past, that it's, you know, there are certain dangers that have your oil production tied so heavily to a place that is battered by the environment. So there's a lot of interest in moving distribution further inland. And of course, since West Virginia has a reputation as the extraction state, unfortunately, this is where a lot of interest is being directed. And it makes me very, very concerned based on what I know about Appalachia, but also my experience living on the Gulf Coast. So the rest of our part are more of part one than the these where you tried to define what they, you know, Appalachia and Trump countries, so to speak. One of the other things you get into quite a bit is the racial component, which, of course, the stereotype of Appalachia being, you know, poor white and, you know, that racial differences aren't there. And yet you showed pretty quickly that that wasn't the case. What were some of the things that you saw that you think went and will go against the narrative? Well, so most places in Appalachia, I mean, there are places like Knoxville where I lived and a U-Mitchin Birmingham, which are racially diverse in their own rights. But even excluding the more metropolitan parts of Appalachia, like Birmingham and Knoxville and Pittsburgh, you see that there are a few parts of Appalachia that are truly all white. I think I use the example that there are more people in Appalachia who identify as African-American than Scotch Irish. So this is something that I think people should really think hard about, especially in the last year everything, it seemed like everything we were reading was something that had to do with, let's, you know, explain why Appalachia is the way it is. and look at the characteristics of scotch Irish culture. These are weird things to do in my opinion. What we have in Appalachia is a lot of depopulation. And so for lots of reasons, young people especially tend to migrate outside the region. Sometimes they come back, sometimes they don't. So our populations are always in a bit of a flux. But what we can say is that since about 1990, the fastest growing populations in Appalachia, are African-American and Latino. And these tend to be two demographics that are younger. And so they're more likely to stay in the region, but also have families. So if you are living in Appalachia today, there's a good chance that you are living among the most racially diverse generation of Appalachians. Since the time that sort of cold production was at a peak, and you have lots of people involved in those industries. So on one hand, we can say that definitely Appalachia is still white majority in most places. But we can also say that we have this unique quality, which is that our populations are growing quite quickly more diverse. And we need to square those a little bit more in the narratives that people want to tell and talk about. And Appalachia, if you talk to people who are people of color in Appalachia, I mean, many times they'll speak of sort of a double invisibility. There's just the invisibility that unfortunately people of color seem to suffer from in this country, but also the invisibility of being completely written out in some cases of the narratives of the region, there are other within another. And we need to do everything that we can to make much more room in our narratives to talk about those experiences, the experiences of people of color, but also trying to-- which is what I do a little bit more of in my book-- rationalize and think about why people want to believe so intensely that Appalachia is an all white place. Yeah. And like I say, that's so much of the narrative, as you pointed out, that was going on during the election in that period where it seemed like that's what they were looking for when they came in, the various reporters and news organizations, and of course, you point out quite a bit, both in your other writing and in the book. It's not just the TV's, our networks that are doing that news networks, but also the print journalists are just as in many cases just as bad at it. Right. And one of the missing stories in this is what our relationship here in Appalachia has been to the media in 2016, because as someone who is not in the media, but is a little bit adjacent to the media, we can tell you horror stories about getting phone calls from reporters who say, I want to speak to a coal miner. I want to speak to an unemployed coal miner. You're like, I don't know how I can help you with that. We don't have it. I'm not from a coal producing part of Appalachia. You mean you don't have a rolladex of people to-- Yeah, or I want to speak to an African-American person, but only if they supported Donald Trump. So these are the kind of calls that we had been getting for just months and months during the elections. And one of the things that I think is really fascinating, if you-- if somebody in the media, if somebody is listening that's like a journalism student, to read a couple articles about Appalachia and then Google the names of the people who are interviewed. And what you will see is that they're the same subjects over and over and over again, who just appears representative of this Trump country phenomenon. But the faces in subjects don't change. So not only are we being represented by like a single narrative, but sometimes a single person just over and over and over again in these articles and it's really fascinating. And unfortunately, it's not just Appalachia that deals with this. One of the things is you-- if you do any kind of look at media is this concept that when it comes to certain topics, people have become quote unquote experts and they're the ones that get quoted constantly. And unfortunately, without knowing their background, you don't even know for sure what they're trying to say and what they're trying to-- who's supporting them and that's off in the case. Absolutely. So then let's go on to part two because this is-- obviously, as we've already talked about, the book was somewhat a reaction to the Trump election. But just as importantly, I think JD Vance's book, Hill Billiallogy, which you've already mentioned briefly, had a lot to do with why you felt it was important to write this book. Just briefly, if you can, how bad-- or not bad, let's try this again. Why was Vance's points with Hill Billiallogy just so badly off track? I think something-- so when I make criticism about Hill Billiallogy, of course, it is very specific to Hill Billiallogy. But I also want people to understand this pattern that occurs in Appalachia, where it feels like every generation and sometimes more so Appalachia is discovered by the outside world. And you can go back to the 1950s and 1960s and 1930s. And you will find Appalachian educators particularly talking about this. Don West is a famous example. He co-founded the Highlander Folk School. He wrote a lot about this weird pattern where people discover Appalachia and then set to the task of explaining it to other people. And sometimes those explainers are people outside the region, sometimes they're people who are connected to the region, but feel that they are above it. And so this is the pattern that I see reemerging as J.D. Vance has claimed the title of the Appalachian explainer and chief. And it's also important to understand that sometimes this happens and it's not necessarily a big deal. I mean, because of course we've experienced this before, but there is something very specific and unsavory about what J.D. Vance does. And from my perspective, that is he brings back old arguments about racial determinism and repackages them to talk about a poor white population. So if you read Hillbilly Elegy, you'll notice that he's very interested in explaining what Hillbilly culture is. He's very interested in connecting to the problems that he sees with Hillbilly culture to this-- what he presents is an over exaggeration of scotch Irish influence a shared ethnic heritage. And these are very, very disturbing ideas. They come from-- they have a really dark history, a really grim history, specifically in Appalachia. These ideas never end up-- never have a happy ending. But in Appalachia, they have a particular narrative that sometimes lands people in eugenics institutions and things like that. So I was very disturbed to see people from Fox Media, the New York Times, all these mainstream publications that interviewed J.D. Vance or reviewed Hillbilly Elegy, sort of not challenging or even finding worthy of comment. The idea that J.D. Vance has introduced-- reintroduced racial determinism to the language that we talk about when we want to talk about poverty. And the problem is not only this dark history that I've alluded to, but the idea that once you do that and you introduce poverty is something that is innate or naturally occurring. And among certain demographics, you absolve yourself of the responsibility to relieve it. And so this is a very powerful thing that the memoir does as well. It says, you know, it's OK that these problems have occurred. We want them to go away, but we also need to understand that the people did this to themselves. All right, takes away the responsibility to do anything about it because it's their fault. So I do about it. I know you recently made an appearance at West Virginia University. I don't know. I don't know enough to know whether you actually were at the same time with him or separately. Oh, no. I was part of, I think, the same general festival. So they have a something called the Festival of Ideas, but it spread out across several weeks. So we did not even appear in the same week. I came about a week later after J.D. Vance had appeared. So yeah, definitely, definitely a book soon after him. But we did not have any kind of contacts. What kind of reaction did you get? I mean, obviously it was a university. So I'm going to guess that it might have been different than, say, in a different format. But did you feel what kind of things did you, from talking to people, how do people react to him? And is it-- So I mean, understanding and acknowledging that I mean, nobody is really going to come up to me and say, I absolutely love J.D. Vance. I think he's great. But I mean, I think there's a general fatigue happening now towards J.D. Vance that is not even specific to some of the ideas that he has. They've just deduced that he's oversaturated. So he's made appearances at tons of universities, TED talks, all this other kind of things. So people know his ideas, they're familiar with his ideas. They're not really excited to hear them anymore. Regardless of what they are, it's just, you get to the point where you're like, OK, something else please. The reaction to my talk was great, but of course, keep in mind, I'm appearing at West Virginia University as an incredibly pro-labor individual, very transparent about my politics. And I'm appearing there on the second day of a historic labor stoppage, work stoppage. So in that regard, the timing could not have been better to kind of make that personal connection and appear in a place like Morgantown, West Virginia, because it was just such an overwhelming historic moment happening all around me. So the third part of the book is meant to be more of a celebration in many ways of the area of the people called Land Justice People. What areas did you purposely want to make sure you included? How did you decide what to include in this third part? So what I wanted to do, the first two parts of the book, is make the case that the narrative of Appalachia for the past 100 years has been developed strategically and to omit certain voices. So in the third part, it was important to me to really hit people kind of upside the head with all the things that they have been missing when they've looked at Appalachia through these tired and still still narratives. I selected stories and then, yes, that were just important to me personally, to me personally, stories that I sort of held in my head and in my heart when I had sort of rough moments when I was questioning a way forward for the region politically and economically. I wanted to showcase people who, a, self-identified, is Appalachia, but also identified themselves as people who built solidarity around a common struggle. And this has been really important to me. In writing the book, but also talking about the book, I want people to know that there is a heritage that we share in Appalachia. And it's not like some weird Scotch Irish bloodline nonsense and it's not about how long you've been in the region or who, if you had to leave and if you had to come back or how long your family has been living in a certain place, it's about the way that we have supported each other through the struggles that we share. And so I wanted to introduce people like Ollie Comes and Yule Hall and the Highlighter Folk School, people who really believed in that message as well that we are all working together in a shared struggle. A couple of the examples, like I say, you, some of them are historical and some of them are more current events, which is sort of nice because it means you get a little bit of both. And some of them are books, some of them are just different things that I really think do a great job of illustrating. And what are some of your current, what you would consider to be current aspects of Appalachia based on particularly and she developed a book that you think are particularly positive things to say about the area. So I really enjoy-- Appalachia has a strong tradition of community media. And these are characterized by people coming together with not a lot of tools at their disposal, but really making important documentation and creative work that captures the spirit of the region. So I always love to see what is coming out of White Spur Kentucky, which is home to Appalachia, which is a documentary and media organization. They have a sister radio station, WMT, that we've already mentioned. There's a great podcast called The Tril Billings that kind of comes out of White Spur as well. So when I want to think, you know, fine positivity and uplift, I see what's going on in those regions because not only are they producing new narratives, they're also trying to connect people, again, in the shared struggle that we have. And people organize, do political organizing and social justice organizing through Appalachia. And the example that I use in the book is around prison abolition and connecting the families of incarcerated individuals with resources to help them stay in touch with their loved ones. And that's a great example. Also, I really-- it's important to work that the Ohio Valley resources-- and sorry, the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition-- the work that they're doing to put the brakes on the West Virginia oil and gas hob, the fracking hob, because the work of their organization, often they're fighting potentials that are very disturbing. But I think what's important about the work that they do is how often they win. So when I want to see a happy ratio, I look at the work that they do. I'm also a big fan of the work that's done by the Catholic Committee of Appalachia and particularly one thing that they do that's been so tremendous is every decade, or maybe even less frequently than that, but they produce a pastoral. They are the keepers and the producers of a liberation theology. And I think even if you're not a person who is Catholic or even religious, seeing the region through their eyes and all their writings are available online is really hopeful and really beautiful. Yeah, I know when I was living in Cleveland, there were pockets of areas in there that were doing similar work, and it's great that we're seeing in an Appalachia as well. I know I first heard of WMNT by an article. I forgot where I read it now, that discussed their prison work that on Monday nights, for example, they play recordings from people with incarcerated individuals so that a way to get the basic little bits of communication out, and it just seemed like, it made you think, oh well, it is a problem. Communication is a big issue, and for these folks, and what they do on Monday nights, and I've listened to it a couple times, it's very, it's very in some ways matter of fact, most of the conversations you don't even understand because it's probably more personal stuff, but it just sounds like, okay, well, this is something that's serving a purpose. Yeah, exactly. It's really good work. And the area that WMNT is based is still one of the most concentrated areas of prison growth in the country. And so I think there's the hope that if people tune into this program, even if they're not part of the prison community, they're hearing stories about people who are incarcerated, and maybe once they humanize incarceration, that they'll resist in some way the growth of prisons in the region. And unfortunately, that's the problem with most prison narratives is that there is no humanization involved, and that's where we run into problems a lot when it relates to that. Yeah, it's a very important work. But as I say, the nice thing about, as you point out, these, a lot of these organizations are available easily online, WMNT, you can listen to them online with no problem, and duck in and out when you want. Because as you point out, it's all volunteer-based. There are people who literally come in and do a show for a couple hours, maybe once a week, once every couple of weeks, and they do pretty much can play whatever music they want. So it's definitely community at its finest. Yeah, absolutely. So then we got-- I mentioned it earlier, but I wanted to come back to it as your resource list. Now, obviously, one of the things you're saying, your acknowledgments, you discuss how you were able to come up with some of these things. But one of the things that's so great about it is, particularly if anyone's interested in learning more just from reading your book on top of that, is you break the list down and do-- it's more some popular, some academic video, all kinds of material where people can dip in and gain more insight. How did you develop the list or what did you use to decide, OK, I need to make sure I include this? It was a little bit of a hazard, to be honest. So because I just finished doing a PhD, I was-- I don't know, filled a certain liberation, not having to do all those kind of academic citations that can sort of weigh down a manuscript that I could just-- How many academic libraries? So I know exactly what you're talking about. So I was really enjoying the kind of spirit that I could just make recommendations. And of course, all the things that I cite in the text appear in the back. In a very straightforward way, I can think Chris Alffitt, who's a Kentucky-based writer, who helped me do a lot of development in the fiction and poetry section. Again, because of an academic, I really was really important for me to get a second opinion about some of the resources that I recommended in other realms, and he was very helpful and gave me suggestions for those. And again, like academic books, no problem. I could recommend him. million to you. But what I find most exciting about the resource list is the documentary art section because so much the narrative of Appalachio when you think about it is so visual. So I wanted to give people an idea of visual resources that they could to find easily. That was another thing that really informed the way that I developed resources is can you find this easily. So yes, lots of Apple shop documentaries that are cited in the back for example are online free or you can pay like a dollar to stream them. The photographs, the artists, you know, you can at least see like one or two, you know, a handful of their images online somewhere. There's games, video games, which you know, obviously you're not free to play but give you a different way to connect to Appalachio. And it was especially important for me to list that giant list of organizations and there too. Just as sort of a roll call of people who have made a mark on the region. If you want it to learn more about the region, you can easily pick, you know, two or three of those organizations out kind of Google them, read about them and start your journey from there. Yeah, most of the time when I do interviews for this, for the new book Network Most of Mine or Film Related. So I've talked to a lot of writers about documentaries. So documentaries I agree with you. They can be and there is there is a rich and I can use that word from just from looking at your list or number of documentaries going back many years that are absolutely spectacular as to how they illustrate the area and they're definitely worth reaching out for even some that are a little more tough to find. Oh, absolutely, absolutely. And there are, you know, resources like a stranger with a camera, which is a very fine documentary about Eastern Kentucky and about poverty pictures. And that is still, you know, a documentary that people in the region screen. I think Appalachio is screening it next month, for example. So these are still, you know, resources that when we want to, you know, start a conversation, these are the resources that we use. So what is the present and future for you? I mean, obviously you're going to continue to write, but I know you also have a lot of other activist activities. And I think you just became the editor for the West Virginia University publications, the, yeah, the West Virginia University Press. Press, right. Oh gosh. So there's a lot going on. So I'll be starting hopefully my next book soon. It's more or less under contracts. And it's going to be another, another, you know, public history piece. And then my partner and I have a little company called Paso. And what we like to do with Paso is we like to help groups and Appalachia organizations in Appalachia interpret, underrepresented history, connecting them to tools or resources or things like that. So for example, we'll help a heritage organization put an endangered building on the National Register of Historic Places, things of that nature. So that work is really, really, really important to me. And I've already, and we've already developed some really strong partnerships to do work through in the coming year. Like you said, I just became an editor at large at West Virginia University Press, particularly with titles about Appalachian Studies and Public History, which is what I do. So I'm looking forward to, you know, if people were inspired by my writing or, you know, thought it was interesting to work with them. And maybe, you know, help get some of their writing out into the public as well. And adjacent to all of that, I'm an organizer for the Democratic Socialist of America. And I organized through Charlottesville, Virginia. So there's lots of work that we're doing for the coming year as well. Yeah. And as a side benefit to your book, I have to say I discovered belt publishing. I don't know how I missed them, but it's just unbelievable. And they cover, like we talked about, I mean, it's Appalachia, but belt as in rust belt. And so obviously they've, they do a lot of books and material related to my old stomping grounds in Cleveland, but also the Midwest and all those areas which are going through their own economic and issues that are all related to changes in a lot of things over the years. So definitely a publisher that I'm glad that at the very least I learned more about them. And I'm already looking at specific titles that I'm going to be leaving from them. Yeah, they're titles. I mean, they're range of titles are great. They have the flip side of that is there's a belt magazine, which is, you know, articles and photo essays, magazine style about the rust belt. So they do tremendous work. And then of course, another organization I wanted to make sure we mentioned briefly was 100 days in Appalachia. It's another, it's a website, but also it's the name implies they were only as opposed to really published for putting something together for 100 days and they're still going strong. So I'm, I'm, yeah, for sure. That's another one I wanted to mention. But anyway, well, I must tell you, I really enjoyed talking to you. I hope you have continued success in your work. I'm certainly looking forward to reading more that you write and things that you point one of the great things I feel like you do a good job of pointing us to different things to continue what we learn. We don't just read the book and say, okay, we're done. That's important. Thank you. To read and to go from there. That's why things like resource lists are so important to me. And when I see one, I say, Oh, I got to read, see what I need to define next. So, thanks. That's exactly what I wanted to do. Thank you so much. So thank you for joining me. And I really appreciate your time. Oh, thanks so much. Take care. Bye. I hope you found my discussion with Elizabeth to be both interesting and illuminating and causes you to rethink your previous ideas about Appalachia. This is Joel Cherny for the new book's network.