Mason Adams
Inside Appalachia Co-Host and Folkways ReporterMason Adams grew up near the Virginia/West Virginia border in Clifton Forge, Virginia. He earned a degree in wildlife biology from the University of Rhode Island, but after a couple of years of working out west, he became a journalist and moved back to Appalachia in 2001. Since then, he’s covered mountain communities and the issues affecting them. Mason wrote for the Enterprise Mountaineer in western North Carolina and the Roanoke Times in western Virginia before going freelance in 2012. His work has appeared in Southerly, Daily Yonder, 100 Days in Appalachia, Mother Jones, Huffington Post and elsewhere. Mason likes Appalachian history, zines, roller derby, punk rock, metal, hip hop, bluegrass and classic country music. He lives with his family and a small herd of goats in Floyd County, Virginia.
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Juggling work and child care has never been easy, but it’s gotten even more complicated during the coronavirus pandemic. Our child care system is in crisis.The system was patchwork and threadbare before this year. Working parents in the United States face a lot of pressure. And child care workers are often underpaid, overworked, and undervalued.In this week’s episode of Inside Appalachia we’ll hear from several people who have had to adjust their lives and work in the midst of the global pandemic. -
It’s been quite a stressful couple of months for most of us. For this episode of Inside Appalachia, we wanted to slow down, take a breath, and talk about one of our favorite foods — cookies!We'll get some baking tips on a very special kind of cookie, made with local buckwheat and stone ground flour.
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This week’s episode of Inside Appalachia is about fierce women — something we have no shortage of here in Appalachia.We’ll hear about the folk music collaboration between Wu Fei and Abigail Washburn. Their new album combines the tones of Appalachia with the melodies of China. We’ll also hear a story about the first transgender person elected to political office in West Virginia, and a 90-year-old newspaper publisher who is still hard at work each week.
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There are many tourist destinations in Appalachia, from the Great Smoky Mountains and Dollywood, to the Mothman Museum and statue in Point Pleasant, West Virginia. Natural Bridge, a limestone arch at the southern end of Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley, has pulled in visitors since the mid-1800s. Roadside attractions have popped up all around it, including a wax museum, a zoo, and something known as Dinosaur Kingdom.
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The Roanoke Tribune has been telling its Black readers their lives matter for more than 80 years. While many newspapers have struggled to adapt to the…
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On any given Friday night, a parade of customized cars and trucks cruise from north to south and back again on Williamson Road in Roanoke, Virginia.…
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Army veteran Kyle Chanitz spent two and a half years deployed in Afghanistan, where he saw intense fighting and suffered concussions that led to seizures.…
