HEARTS OF APPALACHIA PROJECT

Some people speak about Appalachia from the outside. Others speak from within it, shaped by the roads they’ve driven, the communities they’ve raised families in, and the places they intend to stay. Christopher Allen of Appalachia Insider  speaks from that inside place. Christopher Allen, owner and co-founder of Appalachia Insider , belongs firmly in the second group. Christopher created Appalachia Insider out of a growing frustration with how his home region was being portray

If an Appalachian schoolhouse Christmas had a heartbeat, it thumped loudest inside that little coal camp schoolhouse. The walls were thin, the floorboards creaked, and the stove rattled every time someone sneezed — but in December, it felt like the warmest place in the world.

W e sure hope we’ve managed to capture St. Charles in the way it deserves — full of the heart and history that makes this town special....

One of the reasons I created the Heartbeats of Appalachia  project was because of the deep connection I feel to these mountain towns—and...

How Coal Camps Carved Out a Future Through Education Roda School 1907 VA Tucked deep in the hollers and ridgelines of coal country, where...

When I was growing up, we always went to my grandparents’ house for Christmas. There would be anywhere from twenty to thirty people crowded inside, with children packed in so tight it felt like the house could barely hold us all. The air buzzed with excitement as we waited for the moment when it would finally be time to open presents.

Halloween in the Holler: Ghost Lights and Granny’s Tales Illustrated by Hearts of Appalachia Project, Inc. Fog gathers around the old tipple as lantern light flickers on a cabin porch — where every mountain story begins. Round about the time the hickory leaves start turnin’ gold and the nights get that bite in the air, folks around these mountains start talkin’ a little softer come sundown. The fog creeps low through the holler, dogs quit barkin’ without reason, and someone’s

Echoes of Ewing, Ewing Virgina History: A Heartbeat in the Valley Nestled near the Cumberland Gap in western Lee County, Virginia, Ewing...

Hearts of Appalachia just turned ONE! Can you believe it’s already been a whole year since we started this little dream on a shoestring?...

There’s a kind of stillness I haven’t been able to find since I left the Tennessee mountains. I lived there once—long enough to know the...