#appalachian writers

[endcant]

an appalachian environmental magazine i follow is calling for writing submissions from specifically indigenous people in southern appalachia and the broader southeast. the theme is indigineity, but the magazine covers ecology and climate change. there is no fee for submission. i am not indigenous, but i frequently see indigenous people sharing interesting perspectives regarding environmental science here on tumblr, so I thought i would share the link here.

#not mine #indigenous writers #appalachian writers #environmentalism #1k

[starrystevie]

where the spirit meets the bones

written by @starrystevie with art by @paintedpatroclus for the steddie big bang.

releasing in october 2023; full excerpt under read more

after finding out that his father passed away and that the munson family home in townsend, tennessee is now uncle wayne's, eddie munson makes his way back to the little house nestled on the out skirts of the appalachian mountains. he brings along someone to help with the heavy lifting, to help carry boxes and clean out the junk the house has accumulated over the years. in walks steve harrington with his hands and arms open and ready to do much more than just the heavy lifting. together, the two work through eddie's grief and anger, acceptance and closure. it's all wrapped up in a family house in the mountains of east tennessee. it's where eddie learns how to let go, how to let people in, and how to live as free as the winds blowing through the overgrown weeds. and if it means seeing steve trying to catch crawdads in the sunshine and seeing the stars twinkling in his eyes in the moonlight, then eddie's happy to be along for the ride.

The moment Eddie peeled his eyes open only to get blinded by the morning sun, he knew it was going to be a shitty day.

His head was pounding. The vodka (and tequila and beer and gin) from last night’s festivities made it feel like he had been hit by a truck and then possibly re-run over by said truck. His arms were as heavy as lead and his stomach was rolling, bile churning around looking for a new place to call home.

Eddie pushed himself out of bed as quickly as his spinning head would allow to bend over the trash can by his dresser, pushing the contents in it down so whatever he got out of his system wouldn’t overflow. After hours of emptying his stomach (it was in fact, only a few seconds), he wiped the back of his hand across his mouth, and grimaced at the sour taste it left behind. It took more energy than he wanted to exert, but he brought himself to sit against his bed, eyes closed against the bright sunlight and took in deep, steadying breaths.

Hangovers had never been his friend. He always felt like such a baby whenever he had one because they drained him, debilitating and humiliating. 

Water, he needed water. Even if he was going to throw it all back up after chugging it down, his body was too dehydrated to function. With a groan, Eddie pulled his feet under him and braced his arms on the side of his bed to push himself off the ground. He had to stand there for a few seconds to regain his balance before walking sluggishly to the door of his room. 

The kitchen in their new trailer was close but not close enough that it didn’t wear him down just to make it the few steps. Eddie’s eyes were closed as he shuffled along the floor, his socks shifting uncomfortably and causing the toe line to get stuck under his toes. There were more serious problems at hand though, so he pushed that gross feeling to the side to focus on opening a cabinet with as little noise as possible. 

Eddie wanted to dunk his head under the running tap as soon as he turned it on. His eyes felt like they were covered in gunk and he had definitely been too sweaty for too long last night as his hair was now all tangled at the base of his neck. He settled for filling up his cup instead of showering in the kitchen sink and took a large gulp, downing the cup and pulling away to gasp for breath. He filled the cup up once more with the intention to chug it down but a fresh wave of nausea had him groaning. 

“Long night?”

Wayne’s voice broke through the silence and had Eddie jumping out of his skin. With a shout, he brought his hand up to cover his chest where he could feel his heart thumping quickly under his palm.

“What the fuck, Wayne?” Eddie breathed out, closing his eyes with a sigh. His uncle chuckled in response. 

“Sorry, kid. Didn’t think I’d scare ya that bad.” 

The trailer fell into a tense silence as Eddie tried to catch his breath and calm his beating heart. Wayne was sitting on a stool at the kitchen counter smoking a cigarette, the ashtray next to him full, scribbling something into a notepad in front of him. He huffed, crossed something out more times than was probably necessary and then continued writing. 

Eddie took a smaller sip of his water once the fear from being jump scared had settled and he remembered just how thirsty he was. A glance at the clock told him it wasn’t even 9 in the morning. “Shouldn’t you still be at work?” 

Wayne grunted in response, puffed at the cigarette that was at the side of his mouth, didn’t even bother looking up from the legal pad as he continued writing. 

“I’ll take that as a ‘no’ then,” Eddie muttered under his breath as he turned around to find the medicine cabinet over the sink. Tylenol was very much needed if he had any hope of fighting off the day long headache he was already sporting. 

The sound of Wayne ripping off a sheet of paper and crumpling it in his hands was harsh against Eddie’s ears in the otherwise quiet room, causing him to wince and whine like a toddler. 

“Okay, I’m going back to bed for at least 8 more hours so I’ll see-”

“Eddie, wait.” 

Wayne’s voice stopped him in his tracks where he had already started his way back to his bed to be a zombie for the rest of the day. Eddie turned around and saw his uncle run a hand down his face before stubbing out his cigarette and pulling out another. He motioned with a hand to have them both come sit on the couch. 

“I gotta talk to you, bud,” he continued as he stood up slowly from his stool to sit down on the couch. 

This wasn’t normal. Sure, they talked whenever they were both magically home at the same time about easy things, the weather, work, what parts they needed to fix up Wayne’s junker truck. But the way Wayne looked made Eddie apprehensive. It made his stomach turn with nerves rather than with the lingering nausea of his hangover. 

“It’s not you, it’s me?” Eddie joked, forcing a laugh onto the end of the sentence to try and make the tension in the room dissipate. He stayed where he was, pressed against the doorframe to his bedroom, thumbnail running over the hard plastic of the cup still in his hand. 

Wayne rolled his eyes before leveling Eddie with an unamused stare. “Just come sit down.” 

He wanted to do the exact opposite of that. His head was still throbbing and his stomach was too unsettled to do anything but gurgle at him, he wanted to brush his teeth to get the grime off them and crawl back into bed to get his limbs feeling normal again. The last thing Eddie wanted to do was have a talk with his uncle. 

The last time they had ‘a talk’ was when he was 15 and he got condoms thrown in his lap with a gruff, “you better stay safe out there, ain't no extra room in here for any babies,” and Eddie didn’t have the heart to tell him he hadn’t even kissed anyone yet. 

Still, he found himself shuffling back across the floor, his sock catching on a stray nailhead sticking up from the carpet tack strip for a brief moment. Eddie flopped onto the couch in a less than graceful way, pressing his back against the arm and bringing his legs up to sit criss-cross on the cushion. 

“Now,” Wayne started with a sigh. He closed his eyes and took in a deep breath, his arm that was slung across the top of the couch picking at an errant thread. “I know you ain’t feeling too hot and I’m sorry about that, but I gotta tell you this before the day goes on much longer.” 

Eddie’s mind went a million directions. Wayne lost his job, he’s kicking Eddie out, he’s got some weird lung disease from breathing in fumes at the plant, they have to-

“It’s about your dad.”

They hadn’t talked about Eddies’ parents in a long time, there hadn’t really been a need to. His mom had passed away when he was young, the copious drugs in her system causing her heart to stop. And his dad was in prison with 20 years for grand theft auto. It was why Eddie lived with Wayne in the first place; after his brother went to jail, CPS moved him to his closest relative which meant Eddie was going to Hawkins. 

Eddie stilled, felt his head slowly tilt to the side like a dog hearing a whistle. “So I have a feeling I am not awake enough or like… sober enough for this conversation.” 

“Yeah, probably not.” Wayne replied with a sharp gust of air through his nose, nodded his head slowly. “Do you wanna wait until you can get some more rest?” 

“Fuck no,” Eddie said with a shake of his head, feeling his brain sloshing around in his skull and man, he really was too hungover for this. “You’ve got me all intrigued now.”

His uncle nodded again with understanding and he took in a deep breath. “It’s hard to tell ya, kid, but he… uhh. He got the pneumonia or something and it wasn’t clearing up and he-”

Wayne took in another deep breath. Eddie knew he wasn’t awake enough for this.

“They found him in his bunk this morning. Guess he just didn’t wake up.”

All Eddie could do was nod. He felt his eyebrows furrow in for the briefest of seconds before flattening back out. His limbs suddenly felt lighter than they ever had, like he was floating up off their scratchy couch, weightless. His head was still foggy from the liquor that he had shot the night before but everything was a bit clearer now.

“So umm,” he bit at the inside of his lip for a moment, eyes flickering back up to meet Wayne’s. He didn’t even realize he had been staring off into space. Didn’t know how long he had been tapped out of the conversation. “What do we…?”

What did he even want to ask? He didn’t know where to start. 

Logically, there were things to figure out. He was sure they had to get his… body, right? Have a funeral or something. Fuck, how do you plan a funeral for someone you don’t really even know? He was an orphan now, and wasn’t that just a trip to think about. Orphaned at 22… was it even considered orphaned at that point? Or was that just being an adult with no parents left? It’s not like he expected some grand reunion with his dad when his time was served but he didn’t know the last he talked to him let alone saw him and-

“Eddie, breath.” 

He brought his vision back into focus, looked at Wayne’s watery eyes and felt the wetness in his own. He didn’t realize he said that all out loud.  

“I don’t know what to do.”

Wayne’s face pulled up in a show of compassion before mellowing into what Eddie thought was supposed to look comforting. He gave him a small smile, one corner of his mouth pulling up and crinkling the side of his face. 

“Tell you the truth, I don’t really know either bud.” Wayne brought up a hand and pet at Eddie’s knee once, twice, letting the silence of the new trailer without its clangs and groans of the old one wash over them. “I’ll give you some time to think.”

Eddie wanted to be 5 years old again. He wanted to scrunch up his nose and curl his fists and stomp on the ground to get his anger out. He wanted to sit at the edge of his mom’s bed and feel the well-worn quilt she loved so much under his fingers. He wanted to go back in time and figure out why his life had to be such shit before he even had a chance to have a life. 

It was easy to blame it all on Gary Munson and if he was gone, who could Eddie blame now?

#ITS TIMEEEEEEEEEEEEEE #I CAN FINALLY SCREAM ABOUT MY BIG BANG ENTRY #SURPRISE ITS APPALACHIAN EDDIE #AND LIKE HELLO?????????? BELLS ART IS PERFECT FOR IT #I AM A VERY LUCKY WRITER TO HAVE GOTTEN PAIRED UP TOGETHER #my writing #steddie big bang #steddie #steddie fic #moodboard #i just need everyone to see the vision okay #(also back for me to drowning at work just had to pop in and scream abotu this for a second)

[c0unterclockwise]

In this place I'm a child forever; my hips have not widened; I may yet become anything. The fig tree is heavy, fragrant. Tonight I lay under it and watch the stars through the foliage.

#mine #southern gothic #western gothic #appalachian gothic #aesthetic #art #writeblr #appalachain gothic #girlblogging #short story #short poem #blogging #writing #writers and poets #coquette #Silvia Plath #Sylvia Plath #farmers daughter #dark academia #nostalgia #weirdcore #liminal #c0unterclockwise #myphoto #photography

[kaaansasblues]

desire, the root of all suffering

#ethel cain #southern gothic #nicole dollanganger #natural born losers #preachers daughter #home #mine #rural gothic #appalachian gothic #mine: photos #mine: poem #poetry #poets on tumblr #writers on tumblr #writers and poets #lana del ray aesthetic #lana del ray aka lizzy grant #lana del rey #nicole dollanganger aesthetic #ethel cain aesthetic

[shannonpurdyjones]

My short story, "The Honeysuckle Weave" has been published!

My horror/fantasy short story "The Honeysuckle Weave" has run in issue 20 of Grim and Gilded, an online magazine of fantasy, horror, and dark fiction.

Set in an isolated historic Appalachia, "The Honeysuckle Weave" is a story of what happens when a girl is pushed to her limit and has no choice but to save herself. Features a good bit of weaving history and lore (because that's where my mind is lately). I'm beyond excited to finally share this story with the world!

Follow the link below and scroll down to short stories to read!

Grim & Gilded issue 20, The Honeysuckle Weave by Shannon Purdy Jones

#horror short story #horror #fantasy #my writing #short story #fiction writer #horror writer #appalachian culture #appalachian horror #published work #published author #new writing #historical fantasy #historical horror

[jkpetrie]

BLOOD MOON

FROM EIGHTEEN BY JK PETRIE

#poetry #appalachian gothic #southern gothic #poems #writers on tumblr #religion #religious #lgbt

[thefadingyouth]

White Dresses

The smell of beer and flowers float through the air, 

In decades to come her white dress will be a light yellow from cigarettes smoke.

For now she is smiling and dancing like a child once again, as she twirls in her dress.

The ringlets in her hair remind her mother of the curls she had once had when she was just a baby. Her laughter reminds her father of the child he raised.

She has her fathers eyes, full of wonder. He was her age when he married her mother.

She has her grandmothers smile, sickening sweet. The southern twang they share is something only they can understand.

Her eyes are gleaming in a way that could out shine the heavens.

A dress she will only wear once, the bottom now light green from her backyard celebration and a makeup stain on the inside. 

She stands in the yard, her flower girl on her hip, taking in the beauty of today.

An organized chaos, that she planned for years.

#southern gothic #southern appalachia #appalachia #Appalachian Gothic #midwest gothic #West Virginia #wedding #poetry #original poem #writing #My writing #writers on tumblr #aspiring writer #creative writing #writers #original writing #queer writers #countryside #somewhere in ohio #ohio valley #self expression #love poem #i love the simple things

[appalachiasferaldaughter]

2

The practices have long been forgotten— Or rather, the reasons why have been lost. Prayers by the clan are still common, Against the haints and boogers, the woods brought.

Most can’t see the land spirits that tarry, But the clan believes in them, nonetheless. Children remark that the woods are scary, When the animals cry under distress.

When I was seven, and my brother four, The mountains nor her woods scared us like that. Stories, rumors, and whispers, we ignored, Our family liked to put on an act.

My dad would tell me and his youngest son: “If you and your brother hear an elk’s cry while you are playing in the woods out front— Run home and don’t look back—a haint is nigh,

Don’t trust the trees to hide y’all, they will lie, Don’t believe Mom and Dad are calling you, For Christ above is your only ally, And His word is the only thing that’s true.”

“But Dad,” I asked him, “Why are the elk bad?” “The elk ain’t bad,” he said, “But the haints are— There ain’t no elk ‘round these mountains and land, They are lying to trick you—so bizarre.”

His son asked, “What happens if they catch us?” The vein in my father’s neck throbbed with fear, But regained his composure and said thus: “You turn to one of them,” He sipped his beer.

#poetscommunity #appalachian gothic #appalachia #paganism #writers and poets #poems on tumblr #original poem #heathen #norse #norse paganism #deconstructing christianity #deconstruction #narratingastory #narrative #writers on tumblr #writing #writerscommunity #writeblr #to be continued #poems and poetry #poets on tumblr #poem #poetry

[a-mustard-seed]

Poem — this was a poem I wrote for an assignment. The task was to write a personal version of George Ella Lyon’s poem, Where I’m From. I used some of her formatting, but tried to make it more of my own. This poem is primarily focused on my childhood spent in Appalachia, which many people close to me don’t know about because I’ve been embarrassed of my heritage for a long time. If you have any questions about it, please ask!!

Up the Long Dirt Road, Where I’m From

I am from pine-covered hills and threadbare boots, from fiddles and azaleas. Where rivers run rich with brook trout and minnows, little legs surrounded by pebbles and broken glass. I am from whiskey pacifiers and sweet apple dumplings, from venison suppers and red plaid tablecloths. I’m from Mama’s bitter coffee that shaped my tongue and trickles through my veins.

I am from Pew Bibles and weighted Stoles, from god-fearing chopped blonde curls. Where road signs preach and billboards shame, wooden posts breaking under their pressure. I am from Little Liberty and train tracks, from graffiti crosses and neon slurs. I’m from the carpenter’s wood that carved my limbs and left splinters in my palms.

I am from lingering marijuana, from bonfire perfume and Jack Daniel’s breath. Where pans shatter homes and diesel growls at children, sore bare feet running alone in the night and robins stopping to greet them. I am from beer can targets and stick beatings, from moldy bean bags and rotted food. I’m from bedtime war stories and shoe box memories that left scars on my ears and scrapes on my skull.

In a cabin by the pond, just up a makeshift road, is a hidden tongue and an embarrassing voice. The sound of intelligent ignorance and a banjo’s cries, flatfoot stomps and disappearing laughter. Where I’m from, we learn to be silently stupid and camouflaged by the trees.

#poetsandwriters #poets on tumblr #poetry #poem #appalachia #religious trauma #appalachian culture #writers on tumblr #writing #original poem #religion #religious imagery #appalachain gothic #southern gothic

[foundlings-novel]

0

There is an insatiable yearning that comes with growing up. With boyhood and all the mud that cakes to your skin with it. It asks for recognition and bee-lining in a way that  boys so rarely get. They hide their earnest curiosity and their disarming vulnerability beneath layers of bravado and sly posturing that shows clear on stage, the tragicomic theater of youth. 

Breathing in a space of heavy muddled air, begging to be inhaled. They stand there, steadfast, taking it all in, then, they are pushed from the platform of observation and are forced to face the infinite, yet finite potential of their life as an acrobat swinging from the trapeze of awkwardness to a high beam of bravado, forever teetering on the precipice of self-discovery, all while the world watches on.

They land and forget to bend their knees and find themselves lost again in the labyrinth of feeling that they refuse to see, borne back ceaselessly against the current of what’s to come, no guiding light in sight. 

And then there’s more. There’s the kids who find the same kind of tumult in the way of their trajectory forward, and they breathe and stutter and push through their lungs collapsing. Sometimes they find themselves too, on the way through the darkness and they learn what they need. 

They see themselves as something else and grow to fill the shape they’ve always been meant to take, rather than fighting the mold fit around them by force. So they begin to shape their sides like clay, and draw a needle back with the fluids that are sure to change them. 

In the sterile ambiance of their bedroom, their bathroom, their quiet space, they pull and breathe and embark on the starkly intimate ritual of injecting testosterone into their tummy, or their thighs. Pulling back the skin and squeezing, fighting to keep it all in. The syringe, a surreal implement of transformation, piercing the flesh ushering in a chemical metamorphosis that blurs the lines between who they were and who they are. Who they have come to be. 

Drawing the needle back once more, there is release and a tiny drop of blood spills out with a hint of clear, viscous liquid that spins new stories with each passing week. Encouraging the dance of the hormones in their blood, those minuscule marionettes writing a new story with every step along the way. 

Each pinch, a reminder that there is power in the self and that all it takes is a small tug to begin unraveling the tapestry that is there everyday. That it only takes a little bit of liquid to further sculpt their identity into what they want it to be. To make change in a world evermore characterized by the collision of the mundane and the profound, where the quest for authenticity collides with the strange paradox that is self-creation. 

#appalachian mountains #appalachian horror #appalachian gothic #appalachian folk magic #appalachia #horror #novel #author #queer #trans #gay #writing #writer #creative writing #writeblr #writers on tumblr #book #booktok #new novel #wip

[whimsy-wallfish]

[ wip re-intro : roux ]

--- by rowan wallfish

[ tag -> wip; roux ] [ tw - self harm, drug use, cults ]

[ vampire-adjacent , queer , southern-gothic ]

[ present tense , first person , multiple third person ]

[ synopisis ]

roux, a spirit desperate for a blood sacrifice has resorted to drinking her own blood. that is, until judd larken finds her in the abandoned residence of the cult that once revered her and takes her from that dastardly place. roux is confused about the outside world after being confined to a decaying house since the 1960s - through music and those humans around her, she comes to undertand the world.

[ themes n motifs ]

pain as devotion, devotion that causes pain but also pain as an expression of devotion. devotion thats symbolized by bloody red. love as consumption, love as violence. morally grey characters, so much mental illness. dark and light isnt evil and good, its simply sadism and masochism. finding community, addiction, the born-sexy-yesterday trope subverted. deer motif for the main character, with antlers symbolizing violence.

[ features ]

the 90s athens ga music scene. autistic genderless lead - an abandoned spirit onced revered by an entire cult who resorts to making blood sacrifices to herself. a run-down goth club going out of business, run by a 6'5" man who wears a top hat anyway. a whimisgoth apartment. an encoded journal. blood that acts as a drug, blood drinking. an altar of exquisite pain. the appalachain mountain in the autumn. clothes tie-dyed with blood. goth music. a love triangle (if you squint hard enough) between a sadomasochist, a sadist, and a masochist.

[ tagslist for updates ]

@belovedviolence , ask to be added <3

#wip; roux #creative writing #writting #writers on tumblr #writeblr #writeblr wip #writing #pain and pleasure #southern goth aesthetic #southern gothic #appalachain gothic #appalachian gothic #love as violence #love as consumption #vampirecore #vampire poetry #vampires #vampire aesthetic #vampire #novel writing #author #writer #writblr #writing community #writerscommunity

[andersonvice]

I’m actually working on my appalachian eddie fic who’s proud 😋

#appalachian eddie munson #steddie #eddie munson #stranger things 4 #steddie fandom #steddie fanfic writer #steddie fanfic #steve harrington #stranger things #wayne munson

[morbidwlws]

I’d like to introduce you guys to my most evilest blorbos: Spencer and Levi Gibson!

Unstoppable (and unstable) sibling duo! Their favorite hobbies include being queer, committing atrocities, fantasizing about patricide and bendin’ God’s ear.

Their story isn’t fully fleshed out yet but I think these mixes paint a pretty good picture. Like the woods, they’re ever growing changing. The first one I’ve given the same [rough] title as the story. For the most part it follows the siblings’ relationship with one another but it also notes on their relationships within the community!

The title for the characters individual playlists I pulled from Beowulf where the poet describes Grendel as “…driven by evil desire, swollen with rage…” because… yeah. That line made me crazy.

So, here we have Spencer: a young girl forced to grapple with the loss of her mother, sister and individuality all within the same year. She grew up fast, and resentful and into a woman that no one wanted her to become. The only things which remain fixed through it all are her brother’s love and her father’s anger. And the beers in the fridge. And the scabs on her knees.

And Levi: the firstborn son of a so-called righteous man. His first reacion is violence, except especially where Spencer’s concerned, although he wished it didn’t always have to be that way. But that town was full of nasty bastards - which meant it had to be that way. Somewhere along the way the wires get crossed, the need to be close to her becomes suffocating, grief and desire crash into one another at breakneck speed.

#my ocs #my story #playlist #mix #transfem main character #bisexual main character #queer writers #writerscommunity #writeblr #support appalachian artists #queer horror #family horror #incestuous themes #appalachian horror #/fire on the mountain

[rutasraiders]

My name is Ruth June, I go by Ruta or RJ.

I'm a student of history and archeology and have participated in archeological digs following early man into North America and have excavated Civil War sites.

I write historical fiction focusing on human interactions.

My debut book will be published later in 2023 with the title OF BLOOD AND SPURS it follows the life of a confederate cavalry scout with General Morgan's Raiders in Kentucky.

#historical fiction #fiction novel #fiction #writerslife #writing #exploration #archeology #creative writing #writers #pennsylvania history #ohio history #west virginia history #appalachian history #ancient aliens #ancient mystery #ancient culture

[stluxxx336]

I will be dropping new pics from the skrip club as soon as I get the email transfer!! Follow my photography blog @heavensdutchess !!!♡♡♡♡

Also, I've said it many times but I'll be releasing some songs very soon. I have 3 songs I really love and that are almost recorded! I can't wait to get them out there. It took a bit of pushing myself but the anxiety is gone and I'm just super pumped to finally get to tell my story thru my writing.♡♡♡♡

#w #words #me #mine #update #girls who shoot film #film photography #35mmdiary #35mm photographers #filmisnotdead #filmisalive #female photographer #female photographers #americana #american gothic #southern gothic #appalachian gothic #appalachia #female writers #writers of tumblr #writers on tumblr #female musicians #musicians of tumblr #musicians on tumblr #americana aesthetic #southern women #north carolina #southern girl #regional gothic #strip club project

[apollopapyrus]

#apollo papyrus #writing #books #podcast #spotify #interview #books and writing #mic lowther #author #computer coding #hiking #appalachian trail #writer