Please feel free to send in your own testimonial about Appalachian Heritage! We are always happy to hear what our readers think about our magazine, and to publish well written testimonials on our website!
“ Appalachian Heritage has become a journal of national as well as regional importance. Some of the best writers in America appear regularly in its pages. Appalachian Heritage is a must-read for anyone interested in contemporary writing.”
--Ron Rash, author of Saints
at the River, the Southeastern Booksellers
Association novel of the year in 2005.
“Appalachian Heritage has become one of the most important journals in the South, no doubt about it. It brings its readers excellent literature written by some of the region's best writers, it explores and celebrates mountain culture, and it raises crucial issues about the future of Appalachia, its environment, and its way of life. In what other journal could you find such fine-tuned poetry, heirloom recipes, haunting photographs, and passionate essays? I don't think that "other journal" exists.”
--Kathryn Stripling Byer, Poet Laureate of North Carolina
“When I was barely four years old, my father would always bring home from work some treat for me in his lunchbox. I was beside myself with anticipation to see what surprise lay in wait inside that treasure chest. Now, more than sixty years later, I think of Appalachian Heritage in those terms. I eagerly await its arrival to see what delights are there: work by writers both new and familiar, interviews, essays examining the work of our most important voices. This literary lunchbox holds not just one treat but a virtual feast for any reader. The pages of Appalachian Heritage nourish us in many deep and satisfying ways. So do yourself a favor: subscribe to this magazine and then choose five friends you want to surprise for a year and subscribe for them. Let the words nourish and surprise them again and again.”
--Jeff Daniel Marion, whose poetry collection, Ebbing and Flowing Springs
(2002) won the coveted national IPPY Award as the outstanding poetry book
released that year by an independent American publisher.
"Appalachian Heritage is truly indispensibile for readers and writers and literary folk in general who enjoy fine writing and are interested in the land and people of the Appalachian mountain region. Since it was founded in the early nineteen seventies, Appalachian Heritage has nourished two generations of Appalachian poets, fiction writers, essaayists, scholars and visual artists and is serving as a home for many young writers of the 21st century. Published four times a year for the past thirty three years, Appalachian Heritage has brought into print a body of work that makes a major contribution to American literature."
--Gurney Norman, the author of Kinfolks and Divine Right's Trip, has devoted his life to encouraging young writers who share his Southern Appalachian heritage.
"I have been a devoted reader of Appalachian Heritage since its inception in 1973. I like the way it currently features a noted author in each issue. This has encouraged a thoughtful literary scholarship that will benefit teachers, librarians, scholars, and all of us. I still enjoy the other sections that feature poetry, fiction, essays, reviews, and photographs. Appalachian Heritage is a necessary viewing point in understanding Appalachian literature and life."
--Loyal Jones, the founding Director of the Berea College Appalachian Center, is the author of several important books on regional life.
"Appalachian Heritage is more than a letter from home or a window on the past. It is the heartbeat of a thriving cultural tradition, celebrating the writers of today and highlighting the issues we face now in the mountain South."
--Sharyn McCrumb, author of The Ballad Series of novels, many of which appeared
on the New York Times best-seller lists.
"Appalachian Heritage is both timely and traditional, and is brilliantly edited, with an exciting mixture of poetry, fiction, reviews and features on important writers. It occupies the central position in Appalachian publications, and I look to it to keep me informed and delighted."
--Irene McKinney, Poet Laureate of West Virginia
"While Appalachian Heritage provides a unique window on the culture, past and present, of the Appalachian region, in poems, stories, essays, photographs, and reviews, it also serves as a kind of community bulletin board announcing new publications, awards, political events, conferences and festivals. And there is always something in each issue that will surprise you."
--Robert Morgan. His novel, Gap Creek, was selected for Oprah Winfrey's book club, bringing an even wider audience to his poetry, short stories and novels, which have delighted a whole generation of readers.
"To my mind, Appalachian Heritage is absolutely indispensable, the most trenchant, dependable, knowledgeable and innovative record of our region and our times."
--Lee Smith, whose novels, from Fair and Tender Ladies to On Agate Hill have entertained and enriched thousands of devoted readers.
"I’ve enjoyed Appalachian Heritage tremendously over the past several years. It has become one of the finest literary magazines in the country. The issues featuring writers like Emma Bell Miles, Mary Lee Settle, Lee Smith, Gurney Norman, Robert Morgan, and Crystal Wilkinson have been superb. I also have read several times the memoir by Bo Ball titled “Two Appalachian Towns” that appeared in the Winter 2003 issue. Mr. Ball remains one of our most poetic writers from the Appalachian region. One of the features I like most about Appalachian Heritage is the depth of treatment devoted to each issue's featured writers. I learned more about Mary Lee Settle’s life and work in the issue devoted to her than in any previous writings about her that I had read. Mary Lee Settle came alive in this issue as the remarkable human being she was. The same is true for Robert Morgan and all the other writers that have been featured.Appalachian Heritage is also important to our region because it gives opportunities for new writers in fiction, poetry, and non-fiction to be discovered as well as for more established writers to be re-read. I especially enjoyed all of the poetry offered throughout the Spring 2006 issue. I’m looking forward for the next gems that Appalachian Heritage will bring its subscribers."
--Jack Spadaro, who lost his job as head of the National Mine Health and Safety Academy in 2004 because he "blew the whistle" on the federal cover-up of the failure of one of Massey Energy Company's coal slurry impoundments which sent 300 million gallons of toxic waste into the watersheds of Martin County, Kentucky, in 2000.
"While a student at Carson-Newman College, I was lucky enough to be assigned a work study job in the college library where part of my duties included cataloging and filing magazines and journals. Every three months I devoured the new issue of Appalachian Heritage, selfishly reading poems, fiction, memoir, recipes, and book reviews before anyone else in my college community had a chance to see the issue.
Since 1993, when I moved back to the region, I’ve been a subscriber and still rely on Appalachian Heritage as one of my main sources of regional information. For me, Appalachian Heritage serves as an educational tool and as a literary excursion—a place to see how photographers are capturing the landscape and people, a place to read what other writers and teachers are thinking about Appalachia, a place where the past informs the present, and a place where I’m continually challenged to think about my identity, residency, and responsibilities as an Appalachian."
--Marianne Worthington, the Book Reviews Editor of Now and Then magazine and
a published poet and Professor of Communication Arts at the University of the
Cumberlands.
Click here to read full-length reviews of Appalachian Heritage
