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.