Take a 2-minute excursion into the heart of the heart of Nature, as a bunch of birds play leapfrog in the midst of a West Virginia snow squall.
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VIDEO: “The Edge of Day”
Thoughts on high while at the edge of day. An original short video production featuring imagery and music by Bobby Lee Messer and words by Kim Wilkinson.
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BLACK HISTORY 1: ‘I was first-class in my own mind’
As part of our Black History Month coverage, here is the tale of Mountain State native Joe Turner, part of a pioneering officer class of Black West Virginians who served with distinction in Vietnam and beyond.
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BLACK HISTORY 2: ‘Rosa Parks’ feet did not hurt’
The actual story of the stalwart moment Rosa Parks refused to move to the back of an Alabama bus in 1955 was far more powerful than a supposed frail, tired old Black lady sitting where she shouldn't.
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BLACK HISTORY 3: Name Change
When the school board stripped the name of a Confederate general off a middle school in a predominantly Black community West Virginia's capital city in 2020, the name change revealed the long and troubled history of institutional racism in America.
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Subscribe to our free, twice-monthly newsletter to learn of our gloriously variegated content (and the fact we use words like 'variegated'). Subscribe at: westvirginiaville.substack.com.
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THE FEMALE GAZE: How a West Virginia Artist Captured 100 Badass Women
Overwhelmed by the headlines, by Donald Trump, a pandemic and winter coming, West Virginia artist Sassa Wilkes couldn't get herself to her easel. Then, RBG died and Sassa found she wished to get to know the legal legend by painting her portrait. She kept on going with 99 more portraits of badass women.
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BOOK REVIEW: The True Story of West Virginia’s (Bourgeois) Revolution and Birth
The birth of West Virginia was more complex than the usual telling that it was born as a result of the Civil War. Industrial and labor forces were in play well before the war that would lead to a breakaway state carved out of western Virginia—with key support from Abe Lincoln, write the authors of the new book "Seceding from Secession."
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ESSAYS: The Rise and Fall of an American Con Man
A look back at a false prophet who was in fact a manipulative, sadistic, misogynistic, cunning con man who many people adored. We mean, of course, Robert Mitchum in "Night of the Hunter," shot in Moundsville WV. A timely essay.
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Behind West Virginia’s vaccine success story, chaos for local health departments
A surprise announcement from Gov. Jim Justice to begin vaccinating the general public caught county health departments in West Virginia — responsible for coordinating the state’s frontline response to the pandemic — off guard.
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NATUREGRAM: January Stroll Under an Azure Sky
The dried out, frosty marshlands are not really absent of life and color. You just have to hang out and look and listen more closely as you stroll the woods and walkways beside the Ohio in western West Virginia.
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ESSAYS: ‘David Bowie, Dad & Me’
Here's a new dispatch from our "Play That Funky Music Bureau"—a touching memoir of the ties between a young West Virginia-born writer and her Dad woven by the music of David Bowie—who have been 74 on January 8.
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COVID FAMILY PROJECT 1: Remain Vigilant, Plus a Recovery Tale
We launch WestVirginiaVille's year-long COVID Family Project 2021, featuring articles, videos, and audio stories from the pandemic frontlines—stories of family loss and recovery, plus people working hard to stop the rising tide of infections and death.
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BREAKING: We Interrupt this Insurrection for David Bowie News
WestVirginiaVille marks David Bowie's 74th birthday today with news from our "Play That Funky Music" News Department. Wait—what does Bowie have to do with West Virginia?! Read and watch on.
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ARCHIVES: Revisiting West Virginia’s Connection to “Gilligan’s Island”
The death from COVID of the actress who played Mary Ann on "Gilligan's Island" is another sad pandemic casualty. Her passing is an occasion to recall the connection West Virginia has to the iconic television show from the 1960s.
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VIDEO: 9 Ways of Looking at ‘Hallelujah”
We dip into the archives of West Virginia cultural multimedia with a 2010 video appreciation of Albert Paley's striking 198,000 monumental sculpture, "Hallelujah," in Charleston WV. Get up close-and personal with a great work of art.
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VIDEO: The debut of “Animals in Appalachia” with “Deer Me”
In the start of a new short video series, "Animals in Appalachia" by WestVirginiaVille.com, a mother deer puts her foot down as she momentarily loses track of her two fawns.
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VIDEO: The Artist’s Work Considered As a Moving Picture Show
Sharon Lyn Stackpole's art considered as a video: "I always had a female character in my drawings either in illustration form or comic and I'd have her acting out whatever I was also living in my drawings. For some reason, this was reassuring and helped me to feel less alone."
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What happened when WV Gov. Jim Justice charged ‘broadband’ expenses to the CARES Act
What happened when Gov. Jim Justice promised this Fall to expand broadband and hook more families, schools, and industries to the Internet in rural West Virginia, using COVID relief funding? Not much, reports Mountain State Spotlight.
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CHARACTERS: The West Virginia brain drain made one of the world’s greatest popstars
In a new edition of our 'Characters' series, we reprint a John W. Miller piece on Lady Gaga's West Virginia roots—and how her Northern Panhandle grandma lifted her up at a low moment, sending her packing back to New York with instructions to "kick some ass."
