This Side of the Mountain

THIS ISSUE IS DEDICATED TO JAMES STILL THIS SIDE OF THE MOUNTAIN By Sidney Fair By now most of you have seen the first issue of Appalachian Heritage published by Berea College. You have responded to it through letters and verbal comments, through new and gift subscriptions, and through renewals. This is a gratifying response. A number of you have written us about the contents of the winter/spring issue. Three pieces received considerable attention: (1) The interview with George Ella Lyon, (2) the article about Breece Pancake by Grace Edwards and (3) John Wallhausser's writing about the Old Regular Baptist Churches in southeastern Kentucky. We hope that future issues will be as well received. As we have said before, Appalachian Heritage is at Berea College on a two-year trial basis. If there is a substantial increase in subscribers and contributors, the magazine will continue to be published by Berea. We solicit your support, financially and through contributions of materials—fiction, poetry, articles, book reviews, photographs and illustrations . We are beginning a subscription drive with this issue. Our goal is to have 1 ,000 or more subscribers by Christmas. You and your friends and associates can help us meet this goal. One of our contributors has said, for example , that he is going to give Appalachian Heritage to persons on his Christmas gift list. That is a great idea, we think, and we hope that many of you will do likewise. In March of this year the number of subscribers was 570. By the end of July the amount had increased to a little over 700. You can see we have made a good start toward the 1,000 goal already, mostly through word-ofmouth promotion and through the publication of the last issue. 3 In this summer issue we are using two excerpts from longer works. James Still gave us permission to use part of the lifetime collection of his poems which will be published later as a book under the title of The Wolfpen Poems. Anne Shelby, whom we introduced in the last issue, has agreed that we can publish her dissertation on Appalachian literature. It is far too long for one issue, so the next several also will carry her work. We think it is an important and needed piece of research and one that helps to fill the gap since the completion of Cratis Williams' dissertation, "The Southern Mountaineer in Fact and Fiction ," in 1961 . Also in this issue is an in-depth piece of writing from nationally known folklorist, Archie Green, which is an important review-essay of Loyal Jones' book on Bascom Lamar Lunsford. In this issue we are also introducing two young writers, Sharon Wood and James Wyatt. A quick preview of materials lined up for the fall issue includes an article by Richard Drake on the slavery and anti-slavery movement in Appalachia; a photo-essay on West Virginia women by Maggie Anderson, and an article by Wade Hall based on letters written by and about the American Missionary workers in Appalachia in the 1800s. In addition there will be fiction, poetry, and book reviews. We feel that Appalachian Heritage has taken quick root in Berea soil, and will continue to grow in the years ahead. 4 ...