BOONE, N.C. — The summer 2026 edition of As the Crow Flies, the open-access expansion of Appalachian Journal: A Regional Studies Review, was released on June 15. This summer edition of As the Crow Flies features peer-reviewed scholarship, poetry, and creative nonfiction, as well as reviews of work in conversation about the Appalachian region.
Carlee A. Bradbury’s scholarly article, “A Mountain Industry: William Barnhill and the Warren Family,” examines coverlet culture through the photographs of William Barnhill and his subjects — most notably the Warren Family of Mount Pisgah, a multigenerational family of women weavers.
E. Shay contributes a creative nonfiction essay about finding a sense of belonging in Appalachia and beyond in “Second Homes,” and Zackary Vernon introduces readers to the potential extraterrestrial presence on Brown Mountain in “Brown Mountain Lights: Toward a Theory of Extraterrestrials in Southern Appalachia.”
This edition also features poetry from John Brantingham, J.T. Bryson, Gary D. Grossman, Colleen S. Harris, Poison Oak, Shannon Telenko, Rebecca Suzan Watts, Rachel Jennings, Aaron McGuffin, and Summar West.
In this issue, Joshua Cody Ward reviews Teresa Martín and Luisa Menéndez: Indigenous Women from Appalachia in the Spanish Colonial Record, edited by Melissa D. Birkhofer and Paul M. Worley, and Pauletta Hansel reviews Mandi Fugate Sheffel’s The Nature of Pain: Roots, Recovery, and Redemption amid the Opioid Crisis. Stewart Scales also reviews Unhyphenated America in Transition: Political Geography, Ethnic Identity, and the Unique Partisan Realignment of Appalachia and the Upper South in Transition by Brian Arbour, while Morgan Wallace Gilbert and Bradbury explore Tennessee Samplers: Female Education and Domestic Arts, 1800–1900 by Jennifer C. Core and Janet S. Hasson, and Felicia Mitchell reviews A Middle-Aged Woman Rages by Melissa Jørgenrud Helton.
This issue is free to access, read, and share at as-the-crow-flies.pubpub.org.
Related: Spring 2026 edition of As the Crow Flies now available
###
About As The Crow Flies
As the Crow Flies is the new open-access expansion of Appalachian Journal: A Regional Studies Review. Appalachian Journal, founded in 1972, is an interdisciplinary, peer-reviewed quarterly featuring field research, roundtable discussions, interviews, first-person essays, and scholarly studies of history, politics, economics, culture, folklore, literature, music, ecology, and a variety of other topics, as well as poetry, photography, and reviews of books, films, and recordings dealing with the region of the Appalachian mountains. The material in As the Crow Flies undergoes the same editorial and peer review processes as the print content, but is more freely available to readers and researchers. Learn more about As the Crow Flies
About the Center for Appalachian Studies
The Center for Appalachian Studies promotes public programs, community collaboration, civic engagement, and scholarship on the Appalachian region. The center is committed to building healthy communities and deepening knowledge of Appalachia’s past, present, and future through community-based research and engagement. Learn more about the Center for Appalachian Studies
Written by Jessica Cory, PhD
Edited by Lauren Gibbs
June 15, 2026
BOONE, N.C.
The "As the Crow Flies" logo overlaid on an image of the Blue Ridge Mountains
As the Crow Flies, an open-access expansion of Appalachian Journal