by Sarah Loudin Thomas | Jul 4, 2022 | Appalachian, holidays, West Virginia
Happy Fourth of July from this red, white, and blue West Virginia writer to YOU! If you didn’t already know, my home state’s motto is: Mountaineers are always free. There’s a serious thread of independence running through the mountains I call home. And what...
by Sarah Loudin Thomas | Jun 6, 2022 | Appalachian, Family, Memories, Nature
A new deck is going up on our house as I write this. And I can hardly wait to sit out there in the cool of the evening. At our last house, my husband and I would often sit on the front porch steps, chatting lazily, watching Thistle poke around, and waving at passing...
by Sarah Loudin Thomas | Mar 28, 2022 | Appalachian, Hiking, Nature, Writing
My favorite way to brainstorm a new story is wearing a pair of hiking shoes on a mountain trail with my dog snuffling through the leaves. I get the BEST ideas! Since our move a little north and east in our section of the Appalachian Mountains, we’ve been getting...
by Sarah Loudin Thomas | Mar 14, 2022 | Appalachian, History, West Virginia, Writing
How do you write a satisfying story about a real event that simply does NOT have a happy ending? That’s what I tackled when I decided to write The Finder of Forgotten Things around the Hawks Nest Tunnel Disaster. I’ve long been haunted by tunnel...
by Sarah Loudin Thomas | Oct 21, 2021 | Appalachian, Family, Language, West Virginia
Today’s post is a continuation from last week. Sharing more delightful tidbits of our Appalachian way of speaking! NOT AS WRONG AS YOU THINK – Appalachian dialect can be labeled uneducated or backwards. Maybe folks need to rethink that one . . ....
by Sarah Loudin Thomas | Oct 14, 2021 | Appalachian, History
Appalachia has a unique and, I think, incredibly special way of speaking. It hearkens back to Elizabethan England with a solid Scottish underpinning and even a dash of Chaucer now and again. I don’t use TOO much dialect in my stories since it can bog readers...
