Reading Rural YAL

In this video Nora and I discuss:

• 01:26 Her rural background and its impact on her writing
• 06:34 Why she became a writer
• 11:20 What her writing life is like
• 14:23 First drafts, failures, and knowing your process
• 22:49 Finding your unique voice
• 25:15 What makes a good story
• 29:38 The importance of audience
• 34:21 Projects she’s currently working on
• 39:48 Tips for becoming a published author
• 47:00 The value of rural stories, cultures, and languages

This episode features ideas for teaching Rural Voices.

In this episode, I walk through each of the individual pieces in the Rural Voices anthology, discussing what I liked or thought was important about them and share a favorite quote from each.

Here are the time codes:

• 01:05 The (Unhealthy) Breakfast Club by Monica Roe
• 01:54 The Hole of Dark Kill Hollow by Rob Costello
• 02:29 A Border Kid Comes of Age by David Bowles
• 03:00 Fish and Fences by Veeda Bybee
• 03:54 Close Enough by Nora Shalaway Carpenter
• 04:14 Whiskey and Champagne by SA Cosby
• 04:58 What Home Is by Ashley Hope Perez
• 05:46 Island Rodeo Queen by Yamile Saied Mendez
• 06:21 Grandpa by Randy DuBurke
• 07:00 Best in Show by Tirzah Price
• 08:01 Praise the Lord and Pass the Little Debbies by David Macinnis Gill
• 08:47 The Cabin by Nasugraq Rainey Hopson
• 09:45 Black Nail Polish by Shae Carys
• 10:29 Secret Menu by Veeda Bybee
• 11:05 Pull Up a Seat Around the Stove by Joseph Bruchac
• 11:43 Home Waits by Estelle Laure (please don’t come for me over my mispronunciation of Taos, NM)

This video discusses Carpenter’s short story, “Close Enough” what it means to be from somewhere, and why folks may or may not claim a place as “theirs”.

This video gives an overview of the types of pieces that can be found in the Rural Voices anthology as well as discusses Carpenter’s goals for the project.

You can find more about the individual pieces here.

Visit Nora Shalaway Carpenter’s Author Page here.

In this episode, I discuss how the international and historic setting of The Reckless Kind provide opportunities for us to think about rural life in modern U.S. settings.

In this first episode, I introduce the book by providing a summary and reading the first pages,

In this episode, I drop some rapid fire ideas and then talk more in depth about how I would run place-based book clubs that look across Black experiences in rural and urban places. The clubs would serve to offer students an opportunity to explore and think with one another about the similarities and differences of experience because of how place shapes those. It also provides space for students to think about the essentializing that happens in the creation of the urban/rural binary and how that shapes folks’ interactions with one another.

Resources Named in the Vid:

• Sundown Towns
• Appalachian Reckoning
• Building Adolescent Literacy in Today’s English Classrooms

In this episode, I talk about my reaction to Magoon’s story. Representation matters, so I think one of the most important aspects of this book is that it gives readers opportunities to engage with the fact that people of color exist and thrive and experience hardship and joy in rural spaces.

That they sometimes want to stay and sometimes want to leave. And while the characters in this book are Black, this isn’t a story of Black pain – it’s a story of living life that exists at the intersections of Blackness and ruralness and kid-ness in a way that captures the everyday, showing how extraordinary it is from every angle.

This episode provides a brief analysis of how place functions in the text, especially as it intersects with race.

Here’s a well-resourced good start at learning about sundown towns: