Once upon a time, a round-faced girl with curly hair and identity issues was told by someone (that genuinely loved her) that she was not "model pretty" like her sister but that she could be "mother pretty" ...
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PICTURE/SHOW: A West Virginia Walkabout from Elkins to Lost River
If you could use a West Virginia roadtrip, here's a vicarious one, traversing from Elkins to Lost River. You'll cover lots of ground. From August Heritage Center jamming at Davis & Elkins College, to the soothing solitude of Kimsey Run Lake in Lost River.
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ONE/PHOTO: What the thistle tells
'the ants quickly took to the milk thistle this year. her bloom doesn’t last long. maybe two days. they seem to be in sync with this knowing, almost as if there is a pulse they can feel when she begins her bloom.'
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PASSINGS: Recalling the ironic, sardonic, compassionate writings of PJ Laska
"It would be impossible for me to do justice either to his writing or to his intellectual prowess. But I will say, as a man, he always sought to share what he knew and never once came across as anything other than a person who could learn from any and everyone ..."
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CHARACTERS | The One-Armed Bandit of No. 1 Holler, West Virginia
The story of the "The One-Armed Bandit" is the stuff of heroes and legends. You may not know Gary Mays' tale, however, as the major league career the West Virginia native might have had may have been blocked by racism. Yet nothing ever kept Gary down for long. | By Douglas John Imbrogno, reprint of 2016 Charleston Gazette story
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VIDEO: “WATER/CLOUD/WIND/LEAF: A Hoeft Marsh Melody”
Hoeft Marsh in Greenbottom WV is where I go when I want to get off the timeline of the world's news. Here's a short, lyrical visit there. It's a little fishy, at the end.
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10 Things to Say About Joe Manchin After He Kills Off Biden’s Climate Initiatives for Good
Has WV Sen. Joe Manchin finally locked his legacy into place as the guy who doomed the planet to an existential climate crisis just because he could?
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INDEX: For ‘Memoirs of Daily Life” Issue, July 1, 2022
Here is the lineup of stories, articles, imagery and more in the July 2022 special edition of WestVirginiaVille on the theme of "Memoirs of Daily Life"
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EDITORS/NOTE: About our ‘Memoirs of Daily Life’ Issue
to devote so many pages and pixels to writers, poets, and memoirists, who issue dispatches from the front lines of their lives or the imagined lives of characters, is not to take a step away from Important Things and Essential Matters. At their best, poetry and prose are no less a form of truth-telling ...
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FIRST/PERSON: A Turtle Rescue Out on Pluto Road
"The first time I tried to save a turtle on the move it peed — or pooped, I’m not sure which — in my truck. I had stopped when I saw a box turtle in the middle of Pluto Road one afternoon maybe ten years ago. I hit my brakes right there in traffic ....
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Five Questions for Two Poets Who Keep Running With Whiskey
How did West Virginia's longtime Poet Laureate plus an MFA Creative Writing professor-poet-musician end up "Running With Whiskey" around West Virginia and the world? We have questions, they have answers. Plus, of course, poems.
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SHORT/STORY: “Salena”
Salena had never had anything beautiful, certainly never anything perfect. The nuns wrapped her in perfect clean blankets. She had a little cotton shirt, perfect. They asked for the name of the father. She said, “I don’t know.” They entered ‘Unknown’ into the blank box.
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READINGS: “Montani Semper … Snapshots from an Appalachian Family Album”
Take a read on a WestVirginiaVille experiment to publish longish excerpts from worthy, well-written books with a West Virginia connection, like "Montani Semper ..."
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POETICS: 3 Poems by James Cochran
'She says Jesus / has spoken to her, told her not to drink coffee / or Redbull, that black tea is okay. / I feel jealous of such direct communication / with a higher power, then wonder if I would / stop drinking coffee if Jesus told me to ...'
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FIRST/PERSON: A few highly personal words on choice
"Three pregnancies. No choice in any of them. I have never chosen to get pregnant. I was foolish, I was sucker-punched, I was surprised. I was naïve, I was savvy. I wasn’t ready, I was ready. Such a basic right that everyone deserves. CHOICE."
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MEMOIR: Why ginseng hunters & trappers bearing bloody hides wanted in my house
One morning, I stumbled down to the kitchen when I heard a noise. There standing was an unkempt man holding bloody hides and smoking a cigarette. "Excuse me?"
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POETICS: 3 Poems by Doug Van Gundy
'These are the hours I love the best, / when the golden light of summer has climbed / to the top of the abandoned building next door / and all of the neighborhood / cats have come out from the woodpile / beneath the back porch to carouse and fight ...'
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PICTURE/SHOW: Traces of Faces in West Virginia Places
Here are shots of West Virginia folk who passed within range of my phone the last six months, when I wasn't using it to order a pizza.
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WATCH LIST: Here are some things to look at, West Virginia-wise
Check out this version of variations on "Country Roads" by the Kanawha Valley Community Band which channels Aaron Copeland; plus a video of a crazy fitness guy sledding around Charleston WV; and more.
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