Emily Hilliard

Folklorist, Writer, Media Producer

Emily Hilliard is a folklorist, writer, and media producer based in Berea, Kentucky. She is currently the Berea College folklorist, working at the intersection of public and academic folklore. From 2015-2021, she served as the West Virginia State Folklorist and Founding Director of the West Virginia Folklife Program at the West Virginia Humanities Council. She holds an M.A. in folklore from the University of North Carolina and a B.A. in English and French from the University of Michigan. Her book, Making Our Future: Visionary Folklore and Everyday Culture in Appalachia (UNC Press, 2022), was named a finalist for the 2022 nonfiction Weatherford Award for books “best illuminating the challenges, personalities, and unique qualities of the Appalachian South.”

For the past 15 years, Hilliard has worked with cultural heritage and traditional arts institutions including Mid Atlantic Arts, Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress, and the National Council for the Traditional Arts. She currently serves on the Advisory Council of the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage. She has been a faculty member at the University of Michigan's New England Literature Program, and is affiliated faculty in Marshall University's Graduate Humanities Program.

Hilliard’s writing and media work have been published by NPR, Oxford American, Southern Cultures, The Journal of American Folklore, Ecotone Magazine, The Bitter Southerner, and Jacobin, among others. Her work has been supported by grants, fellowships, and residencies from the American Folklife Center, the American Folklore Society, the Center for Craft, the Kentucky Foundation for Women, Berea College, and the Turkey Land Cove Foundation.

Her work in vernacular music, laborlore, foodways, and craft explores the visionary, liberatory potential of traditional arts and cultural practices. She is also a co-host of The Female Bob Dylan podcast and co-founder and co-owner of the feminist record label SPINSTER.

Get in touch | emilyhilliard@gmail.com