Tammy Robinson Smith could well be one of the characters in her own fiction. Some sort of regional literary mandate dictates that the heroine’s heart must always belong in these Southern Appalachian mountains no matter what else comes along, and…

The fabled cranberry bogs of Shady Valley, Tennessee, were once the very image of a pastoral Ocean Spray commercial. Now mostly a faded memory, the remaining bogs are still woven into the fabric of civic pride—in the town’s welcome signs,…

images/voice_uploads/energy-exchange-8_circle.gif Hand thrown pottery and blown glass have a high aesthetic value, but they also come with a fairly high price tag in terms of energy use and environmental impact. EnergyXchange, an arts incubator project in Yancey County, is working…

NORTH CAROLINA Appalachian State University, Boone, NC – ASU’s wide ranging Renewable Energy Initiative began over a decade ago with the founding of the Sustainable Energy Society. It expanded in 2004 when students approved a green fee of $5 per…

From campus to community to state, students across the Southeast will have a strong campaign this coming school year, pushing more schools’ administrations and state legislators to convert to renewable sources of energy and move away from fossil fuels. Students…

Sandor Katz is literally brewing up a revolution in his kitchen. The Tennessee man has authored two books on food. The first, “Wild Fermentation,” mixes Katz’s experiments with kraut, sourdough, wine and other fermented foods with the politics of self-sufficiency.…

images/voice_uploads/tntechStudents_circle.gif Institutions of higher learning have an enormous responsibility to help lead the way towards a more sustainable society, and nothing empowers and interests a university administration more than students committed to a good cause. Your individual efforts can have…

For well over a century now, Appalachia has been categorically reduced by many outsiders and insiders alike to include only white Scots-Irish descendants, with a few Native Americans thrown in for political correctness. The rich ethnic diversity that actually exists…