Author Archives: moundsville11

The Moundsville blog promotes the movie ‘Moundsville’, now on PBS, and collects writing about Moundsville and West Virginia. Neil Diamond turns 80 on January 24, and of course Theron Denson is planning a gig on the great man’s birthday. Denson, who calls himself “Black Diamond”, is one of this country’s great tribute singers. He grewContinue reading “West Virginia’s Neil Diamond Imitator Wants to Heal America with ‘Porcupine Pie’ (and Visit Moundsville)”

Hillbilly Elegy, on Netflix, has joined The Shack, See No Evil Hear No Evil, and Saw V as films audiences love and critics hate. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film scores 26% with critics, and 86% with audiences. The split seems to reflect “the two Americas”, as New York Times columnist Ross Douthat has suggested, butContinue reading “10 Reasons Appalachians Love ‘Hillbilly Elegy’ (Even if Critics Hate It)”

‘Moundsville’ is a PBS movie about the history of a small town on the Ohio River, and this blog collects articles and essays about the town, and West Virginia. Major League Baseball made it official today: West Virginia, a state with a rich baseball history, is losing Major League Baseball affiliation for all four ofContinue reading “West Virginia Officially Loses All 4 of its Minor League Baseball Teams”

The brain drain from America’s hinterlands to the cities has shaped American economics and politics this century as much as the tech revolution, the opioid epidemic and the war on terrorism. In the last 50 years, as manufacturing has dried up in rural America, millions of Americans have migrated toward brighter lights, an exodus chronicledContinue reading “Why This Educated Millennial is Staying in West Virginia”

We’ve been fighting over hillbilly elegies for a long time. Amid the buzz and furor over the Ron Howard movie, I watched Stranger with a Camera, a 2000 doc by Kentucky filmmaker Elizabeth Barret. The Appodlachia podcast team, John Isner and Chuck Corra, published an anthology of books, movies and podcasts about Appalachia, and includedContinue reading “When the Hillbilly Shot the Filmmaker: The Genius of ‘Stranger with a Camera’”

Church or state: How do we rebuild America’s left-behind communities? NOTE: America Lost is currently available for free here. The 2016 and 2020 elections had different outcomes, but this in common: neither magically reboots America’s diseased neighborhoods. The work of rebuilding, and surviving in, communities crippled by globalization, white flight, crime, drugs, income stagnation andContinue reading “‘America Lost’ Finds Humanity and Redemption in Youngstown, Memphis, Stockton”

A divided Moundsville watches: “She should wear a Steelers jersey.” On one level, Lady Gaga’s appearance in Pittsburgh tonight with Joe Biden, on the last night of the 2020 election, is a classic celebrity endorsement. Gaga is a globally famous pop star. Politicians seek out props like Lady Gaga all the time. On another, Gaga’sContinue reading “Lady Gaga, Star with Roots in Appalachia, Campaigns in Pittsburgh — Mom from West Virginia Town Left for NYC, Part of Rural America Brain Drain”

Review of Ghosting the News, by Margaret Sullivan When 37-year-old CVS cashier David Seum decided to run for Moundsville, WV town council in 2020, he hired a Wheeling-based public relations firm called Folkore. Its director, Nathan Daniel Blake, the son of a coal miner, worked for a local paper but left for PR because “itContinue reading “Moundsville Craves Stories in a News Desert — Local News Helps Citizens ‘Intercept the Same Reality’”

11,000 people in WV claim Native American ancestry — Couldn’t own property until 1960s In Moundsville, Native Americans are present through the stories of the Adena people and the mound they built over two thousand years ago. We couldn’t find anybody in town with Native American ancestry to interview, but in West Virginia, there areContinue reading “Lighting Up West Virginia’s Native American Past After Suppression”

David Seum Wants to Reboot Moundsville With Events, Family Park — Imagines Life on $37,000 A Year Way up this fall’s U.S. election ballot is the presidential choice of Donald J. Trump or Joe Biden, and, in Moundsville (pop. 8,000), way down the list is 37-year-old David Seum, who’s standing for town council. You canContinue reading “Candidate for Council Dreams of Rebuilding Town While Making $19,000 a Year Working as CVS Cashier”