Bears, Books, Robots & Robert
What's Going on Around WestVirginiaVille.com | friday.dec18.2020
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1| Bear With Me
On a winter day of steady rain and bone-chilling cold, I give up trying to Figure It All Out. Instead, I sift through my photos, cropping and lightly filtering them. Maybe I can find order and meaning there or an aesthetic distraction, which may be just as good. Like this bear hunter. Future historians will be able to research the current global pandemic by scanning our photos and looking for masks. I snapped this guy while entering a local big box store. “Who’s the bear for?” I asked. “It’s for my big dog who loves big stuffed animals!” he said. The image of a large mastiff snoozing with a large pink stuffed bear brought daylong smiles.
MORE: PHOTO|ESSAY: 10 ways of coping with a dreary West Virginia winter’s day | IMAGE: TheStoryIsTheThing.com photo
2| Guest Appearance
Guest Room Press, a new publishing outlet and writing resource, has opened in West Virginia. The brainchild of writer and educator Andréa Fekete, it’s a hybrid press—a breed that lies somewhere between the worlds of traditional publishing and self-publication. Colleen Anderson sussed it all out in an interview with Fekete, who says:
The press hopes to work with both experienced and established authors, but also forgotten voices or ones not heard, said Fekete, who is on the lookout for specific literary voices. “I’m interested in publishing working class people, women, people from backgrounds that you just don’t hear a lot from. I’d really like to publish Appalachian or Southern writers, but I’m also interested in voices from the inner city—anyone who has a voice that is often forgotten in publishing.”
MORE: BOOKS: A Hybrid Press for West Virginia and Beyond | IMAGE: By Annelies Geneyn on Unsplash
3| Rocked & Socked
Once a thriving West Virginia town whose region produced everything from cigars to airplanes to classic toys such as Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots, Moundsville—population 8,400—looks to figure out where it goes from here. The new 2020 documentary "Moundsville" considers the town's past and present and future possibilities. We go deep with one of the doc’s co-creators, former Wall Street Journal correspondent John W. Miller, who grew up in Belgium and gallivanted globally for the Journal. He has interesting things to say about West Virginia and our current state of affairs:
“I think what I learned is that you get somewhere in politics right now by refocusing on local stuff. One thing that struck us interviewing people in Moundsville was that when we asked about Trump, we got answers repeating stuff people had seen on TV. When we asked about local stuff, we got real, original knowledge, and a lot of fact-based wisdom. And I know from staying in touch with people in local government that divisions at the national level do usually disappear when you’re trying to organize trash pickup or build a new highway through town.”
MORE: 5 QUESTIONS: John W. Miller on taking a deep dive into a small West Virginia town. IMAGE: The Native American burial mound that lends Moundsville its name.
4| Warming Up
His name was Robert. I encountered him up a Huntington alley I was turning into on final approach to the drive-thru for Grindstone Coffee, a place founded by an Australian couple (which I heartily recommend). I asked his name, as I do with folks to whom I give money, so as to remember they’re not charity cases, but people trying to Figure It All Out, too—while also struggling to heat their lives on cold days. “How are you getting by?” I asked through my mask. “OK,” Robert said. “I got a house near here I rent with another guy.” He gets pennies a bushel selling cans he collects from the trash. “But it helps pay the rent and keep the heat on.” We wished each other well.
MORE: PHOTO|ESSAY: 10 ways of coping with a dreary West Virginia winter’s day. IMAGE: TheStoryIsTheThing.com photo
PS| Streaming Service
One thing missing from outreach efforts to attract young folk to come live and work in West Virginia are wide-ranging opportunities for men to be able to pee off their porch or deck. Or really in woods across the Mountain State, from east to west, north to south. We don’t talk about this nearly enough.
IMAGE: Greenbottom WV, dec10.2020 | TheStoryIsTheThing.com photo
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