Berea College’s Loyal Jones Appalachian Center has announced the winners of the “Appalachian Narratives for Our Time” award for essays about how Appalachians thrive in the places they call home.
The submitted essays focus on the authors’ compelling life stories and illustrate the challenges of coming of age, working and living in the realities of family and community.
“Appalachia has a rich and, at the same time, challenging history,” said Chris Green, director of the Loyal Jones Appalachian Center. “All too often, however, national media portrays difficulties in the region as the fault of people who live here. We wanted to give the majority of Appalachians who grow up and make good lives a new opportunity to tell their stories.”