Category Archives: Rural Identity

Welp, it’s been a minute or two since I posted a blog or published a podcast episode, and there’s a really good reason for that. You’re looking at the new middle school language and humanities teacher of Oak Farm Montessori School. I’ve been back in the classroom and finishing out my contract with Purdue andContinue reading “Finding My Unicorn”

A little while back, I was gifted Sarah Smarsh’s She Come by It Natural which is, appropriate to its subject matter, a mighty little book of essays about how Dolly Parton’s songs and public persona work to define a rural feminism, even though rural women might not want to use the term because it isn’tContinue reading “Rural Feminism Is Not an Oxymoron”

Lately I’ve been thinking not only about the things I learn from my work but also what I realize I need to unlearn. I have started to notice things and ask questions about certain ideologies and behaviors that I don’t think I would’ve otherwise. Why I do what I do? And is it good? AContinue reading “Work & (Un)Learning (Some) Rural Values”

While interviewing the out-migrant teachers who participated in my dissertation study, those of us with children talked about the tensions we felt around how our kids were growing up differently than we did. That they were removed from rural living and their rural family members which meant that they didn’t have access to the oralContinue reading “Rebuilding Our Worlds Again: Part 3”

This week I wanted to continue thinking about what it means to be from somewhere and its connection to genetic memory – memories that become coded in our DNA and get passed down through generations over time – in order to think about what it means and can look like to value and preserve ruralContinue reading “Building Our Worlds Again: Part 2”

I recently finished Monica Roe’s recently published novel AIR. It’s excellent for so many reasons, and I’ll get to that a little bit later in this post, but first I wanted to address the bone I have to pick with Kirkus as a way to illustrate why we need more rural voices across all areas and aspects ofContinue reading “Why We Need More Rural Voices In Publishing”

I recently had the immense honor of being a guest teacher in a rural classroom in Arkansas (thanks, Zoom!). And it was the most fun I’ve had in a long time. My lesson was a writing workshop on folk writing and how we can use family stories to inform our writing across genres and disciplines. Continue reading “Building Our Worlds Again: Preserving Rural Stories and Culture”

First, I’ll preface this post with the fact that I am not a trained linguist or sociolinguist. But, I am a speaker of a rural English variety. One that has always been at odds with the Standard Mainstream Upper/Middle-Class English valued in learning spaces. One that I worked hard to unlearn and keep out ofContinue reading “What Is (My) Rural Language Variety?”

As I was scrolling through Instagram this morning, I came across an opinion piece published in the Washington Post that had been shared by @ReadingAppalachia called “When J.D. Vance called himself a hillbilly, it made me mad. Now I’m upset that he stopped.” by Cassie Chambers Armstrong. In it she discusses her frustration and ire that VanceContinue reading “Who Gets to be a Hillbilly?”

In July, I returned home. For months leading up to that trip, I stared out my kitchen window thinking about it. Because my heart constantly calls for home. Even when doing the dishes. I’ve been thinking a lot about what home is and means and the privilege I have in being able to return toContinue reading “Imagining (a) Home”

A City Exchange A while back, my dad visited me in Austin. Because of our love for Texas singer/songwriters and Guy Clark’s “Dublin Blues,” the Texas Chili Parlor (and a Mad Dog Margarita) was a necessary excursion. We decided to make the three-block trip on foot in the heat of August. Now, Dad has aContinue reading ““Can I be your friend?””

How do you describe someone who has left one kind of population for another when there are no international borders crossed? How do you name and categorize that movement? This question and predicament always reminds me of Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying. In it Anse Bundren describes knowing that God didn’t intend for men toContinue reading “Out-Migrant”

I’m obsessed with my work. It’s all my favorite things – research, reading, writing, and place-connected people. Which means that I talk about it…a lot. One of the things that always strikes me is the number of folks who ask me about the definitions of some of the terms that I use. I guess becauseContinue reading “What is rurality?”

If this is where I’m from…. And this is where I live now… Am I still rural? It’s this question that started this whole project. Spoiler alert – I don’t know the answer. What I do know is that I’m constantly grappling with it. I am uncertain how to define myself. I feel more ruralContinue reading “Am I Still Rural?”