Page 4 - Patrick Stephens News Today

This week, we drop by Flat Five Studio in Salem, Virginia. It had a reputation for recording bluegrass bands, but caught a big break in the early 1990s when the Dave Matthews Band needed a quiet place to record its debut album. We also learn a little about primordial forests, and we visit a small nonprofit company in West Virginia that’s making solar powered light kits for families in war-torn Ukraine.

Appalachians love to compete. Whether it’s recreational league softball, a turkey calling contest or workplace chili cookoffs, Mountain folks are in it to win it. But there’s more to competing than just winning or losing. In this show, we’ll meet competitors who are also keepers of beloved Appalachian traditions.

This week on Inside Appalachia, If you’re hungry for a pepperoni roll in West Virginia, you can find one at just about any gas station, but how did they get so popular? In Pennsylvania, the lure of one particular sweet treat gives hikers on the Appalachian Trail a break on their journey and a challenge that requires a strong stomach. We also "spill the tea" on a classic roadside attraction that’s been around for generations.

This week on Inside Appalachia, we visit with West Virginia trappers to learn about the fur trade in the 21st Century. We also meet a county fair champion who keeps racking up the blue ribbons and has released a cookbook of some of her favorites. And we hear an update on the Mountain Valley Pipeline. Construction has begun again, but some people wonder if it’s even needed.

This week on Inside Appalachia, flooding is a recurring problem across Appalachia. This week, we’re taking stock, and looking back on floods that have devastated parts of West Virginia and Kentucky. We explore some of the reasons for floods, as well as the aftermath and the slow recovery that often follows disaster. It’s not all gloom. Even in our hardest moments, there’s always hope.

This week, we visit a farm in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania that can grow on one acre what other farms grow on 100 acres. We also hear about a podcast that remembers the "Back to the Land" movement of the 1970s and ‘80s – and a mysterious disappearance. And, we meet a team of scientists that found dozens of new millipedes across Appalachia. They named one species after a pop star.

Inside Appalachia loves books and writers – and if you’re looking for summer book recommendations, we’ve got a bunch. This is our summer reading episode, featuring some of our favorite notable author interviews from over the past several months. 

This week on Inside Appalachia, Drop of Sun Studios in Asheville, North Carolina has put out some of the hottest indie rock records of the year. We talk with one of its co-founders. We also visit the Allegheny Highlands, where Appalachia’s maple syrup traditions are changing with the times. And, poet Lacy Snapp introduces us to east Tennessee’s poetry scene.

This week on Inside Appalachia, a high school football game, a street festival, and a kids' classroom are all settings in a new film about how coal mining shapes Appalachian culture. We also learn about the results of a new survey showing alarming mental health trends in Appalachia’s LGBTQ community. And we meet a taxidermist in Yadkin County, North Carolina who was just a teenager when she found her calling.

This week on Inside Appalachia, a North Carolina potter is reviving an art form brought to America by enslaved Africans. We return to the town of Hindman, Kentucky, which endured catastrophic flooding last July, and get an update on the town’s recovery. We also talk with West Virginia poet Doug Van Gundy about disasters, and their relationship to art.