Excited to be a part of this special weekend in Knoxville, hosted by the East Tennessee History Center and celebrating the contributions of women to American old-time music!
On Saturday March 7 at 2:30 we’ll be doing a live taping (our first!) of an episode with special guest Dr. Jessie Wilkerson on the late great songwriter and bluegrass musician Hazel Dickens.
Earlier that day at noon, Emily Hilliard will be in conversation with the one and only Alice Gerrard about her new memoir, Custom Made Woman: A Life in Traditional Music.
All events are free and you can catch other great talks, concerts, and film screenings, and tour the Birthplace of Country Music Museum traveling exhibit “I’ve Endured: Women in Old-Time Music” throughout the weekend. More info here.
National Rural Letter Carriers Associations Hosts Events for the US Postal Service's 250th
In my folklore work, I’ve been exploring ways to reignite public folklore’s engagement with labor, so I was particularly excited when a rep from the National Rural Letter Carrier’s Association (the rural letter carriers union) reached out to me a few months ago after reading my Jacobin piece on the potential impact of US Postal Service privatization on rural communities.
As a result of that conversation, I’ll be participating in two NRLCA events next week in celebration of the 250th anniversary of the USPS, in Jefferson County, West Virginia, where Rural Free Delivery delivery was born 129 years ago.
On Thursday 7/24, colleagues at the Smithsonian National Postal Museum, Iowa Historical Society, and I will be presenting on the history and contemporary iteration of rural mail at the Shepherdstown Opera House. On Friday 7/25, I’ll be moderating a panel on the vital role of rural mail carriers in their communities with two West Virginia rural mail carriers, policy experts, and the president of the NRLCA Don Maston at Shepherd University’s Byrd Center.
You can find more info and register to attend in-person or online here: https://www.protectpostalworkers.com/usps-250th-anniversary-event-registration
Long live the USPS!
Center for Craft 2025 Craft Research Fund
Thank you to the Center for Craft for awarding me a 2025 Craft Research Fund for the project, The Multi-Stranded History of Hand Knitting in Appalachia. This research will explore the underdocumented cultural history of hand knitting in Appalachia through archival research, community surveys, and fieldwork with contemporary practitioners in Appalachia and Northern Ireland. The project will result in a publicly accessible archival collection, article, and conference presentation.
The Female Bob Dylan Podcast Featured on Bandcamp Daily
Bandcamp recently featured our new podcast The Female Bob Dylan and gave us the floor to pick and write a few words about some favorite albums on the platform. I chose Natalia Beylis’ Variations on a Sewing Machine, Cath and Phil Tyler’s The Ox and The Ax, Fawn Wood’s Kikāwiynaw, and Norma Tanega’s I’m the Sky: Studio and Demo Recordings, 1964-1971.
You can check Sophie and Sarah’s excellent picks, our blurbs about each, and Mariana Timony’s full write-up here.
Harvard Folklore Symposium: Appalachia Betwixt & Between
Looking forward to learning from colleagues and presenting at Harvard Folklore & Mythology's Symposium this weekend! I'll be speaking on how expressive culture (aka folklore) was used by public educators during the 2018-2019 West Virginia Educators' Strike to bolster worker power, teach the public, and forge a new reality, and how those lessons still resonate today.
Thank you to Sarah Craycraft for the invitation and organizing work!
Learn more here