You don't have to live long in West Virginia before you hear that the land used to be a "hunting ground" for Native Americans. The actual history is more vibrant and complex, as the region was more likely "an Interaction Zone" or melting pot of native ethnicities, languages, and technology.
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UNMASKED! |A Pandemic Photo Project
Yes, of course you should still be wearing a mask in public. A second wave of infections? We're not even through the first. Here are some masked inspirations—followed by their unmasked selves.
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PODCAST | A Coal River Homeless Camp Tale of Survival
Homelessness is something most people see on a regular basis here in West Virginia. But what about the homelessness we don't see? Kyle Vass takes us into a St. Albans homeless camp at the heart of community fight over their riverside existence.
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OP-ED LIMERICKS | An Absolute Artist at Failing
West Virginia writer and artist Colleen Anderson's Molotov limericks are aimed straight at the softest spots of Donald Trump's long-haul campaign to sow division, distrust, and discord across the land. We've animated a crop of three of them, yanked right from the headlines.
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UNSCRIPTED No. 1| Trump’s Good Karma
You must admit he has amazingly good karma. His entire life he has never been called to account. "Trump's Good Karma" is the first in a WestVirginiaVille video series called "Unscripted."
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A Public Service Announcement from the Juggling Community
We hereby present to you "A Juggler's Guide to Covid-19," as we believe this will be the first—and the last —of those you will see during the current pandemic.
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EDITOR’S NOTEPAD: Mitch Gets Moved & WV Can’t Wait Begins a Movement
By Jove, West Virginia voters did indeed "Move Mitch, Get Out the Way." Meanwhile, the WV Can't Wait campaign of Stephen Smith came up short, but the start of its "movement" did not.
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DRIVE-BY LOVE: Portrait of a Pop-Up Pride and Black Lives Matter Parade
There were balloons and streamers. There were rainbow flags. And lots of honks. A video/photographic portrait of a literally moving Pride and Black Lives Matter parade in Huntington WV on june6.2020
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STEPHEN SMITH | Part 1: On His Long-Distance, Grass-roots Run for Governor
As part of a new WestVirginiaVille series called, "Conversations," we sit down with 2020 West Virginia gubernatorial Democratic candidate Stephen Smith as he winds down a two-year, grass-roots campaign to upend the long reign of what his campaign dubs the "good old boy network" in state governance.
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STEPHEN SMITH | Part 2: Why We Endorse Stephen Smith for WV Governor
Why WestVirginiaVille is holding up its small megaphone with a big message: West Virginia is in sore need of systemic change. And Stephen Smith and his campaign are the only ones who seems to have thought deeply about how to get that ball rolling.
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DON WEST | Part 2: “May It Be So”
Long before it became fashionable, Don West fought the passive hillbilly stereotype by pointing to mountain labor’s traditions of struggle and solidarity.
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DON WEST | Part 1: Not An Easy Path
Don West was not a warm and fuzzy person or "a creator of comfort. He was a ceator of action." It could be uncomfortable, but the labor activist and poet left a legacy to be explored in a WVPB documentary that debuts Sunday, June 7, 2020
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HAPPY MOONSHINE DAY |Part 2: “The Plum”
We call it The Plum. It’s the prettiest moonshine we make. The shine is made from my PawPaw’s PawPaw’s recipe in a copper still just like it was a hundred years ago. In each jar, we put 13 sweet plums from the trees my great-aunt planted after the ’37 flood...
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HAPPY MOONSHINE DAY | Part 1: Moonshine Lore
It's National Moonshine Day. No, really. We have a 2-part, full report: 'Fun Facts to Know & Share.' And plum moonshine fiction.
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VIDEO: ‘They Know Who the Thugs Are”
Within the police department itself, there are some thugs and gangsters, says Rev. Matthew Watts. "And the police have to police themselves. They know who the thugs are! They know who the gangsters are!"
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VIDEO: A Saturday of Protests in Huntington WV
What it's like to be a black man in Trump's America. Why communal effort is needed. How racism is woven into "the American quilt." PART 2 of our coverage of a Huntington WV rally protesting the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officers.
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WATCH THIS: What Needs To Be Said About George Floyd’s Murder
We were looking for a quote at a Huntington, West Virginia rally in protest of the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis policemen. We got far more than a quote.
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EDITOR’S NOTEPAD may31.2020: Introductions
Westvirginiaville is intended to fill a chasm in the current denuded state of West Virginia media. THE AIM OF WESTVIRGINIAVILLE is to feature work on "life & other stuff" with some connection to the state.
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READINGS | COVID-19, Day 77: Yes, I’m Waiting.
"We are front porch people, but I have to make do with a flat section of mulch and an oversized Adirondack chair the ex-husband made me when he was still a husband."
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The West Virginia Musician Who Helped Draw Bob Dylan to Nashville
West Virginia may not immediately come to mind when you think of Bob Dylan's influential 1965 record "Highway 61 Revisited," which one writer says that in an important sense "started" the 1960s. Think again.
