I was born and raised in the great Commonwealth of Kentucky. More specifically, Louisville, a tiny beacon of liberal hope in a state that prides itself on its southern charm and conservative values. Home of the Kentucky Derby and the biggest of hats, strong bourbon and the best Mint Juleps you’ll ever taste, tobacco, and a college basketball culture unlike anywhere else in the United States. A city where faith and religious conviction dance with sin. Most definitely not the…
Kentucky
Appalachian Pit Stops: Where to Eat on Kentucky’s I-75 Corridor
Posted on July 10, 2018While much of Kentucky tourism centers around the annual Kentucky Derby in Louisville and the popular bourbon distilleries that speckle the state, there are booming smaller towns right off Interstate 75 that are revitalizing their downtowns and embracing the farm-to-table movement. Driving northbound on I-75, travelers might easily miss Corbin, London, Berea, Richmond, and even Lexington.…
Spectrum South Snapshot #1: Izzy Broomfield
Posted on October 30, 2017I am a non-binary transfemme panromantic demisexual Appalachian! At least that’s the basic bio version of my identity. I’ve also spent most of my life living in the rural South, so that’s important to me, too, but it doesn’t come before my Appalachianness. My skin’s white, but I definitely don’t identify with mainstream imperialist white supremacist capitalist heteropatriarchy, so my lefty politics are also a central part of my identity (but shhhh, don’t tell anyone! They might think differently of…
Don’t Let ‘It’ Get To You: Facing Your Childhood Fears with the King of Horror
Posted on October 13, 2017My childhood was texturized by horror films, particularly adaptations of King’s work. People still gasp when they hear I watched the original Carrie and It before age 10, The Shining by age 12, along with a host of other classics in between. In Kentucky, I would always spend a night at my Aunt Judy’s and we’d huddle under blankets while watching a horror movie on her wood-paneled TV. I say they left traces; my friend says, “more like craters in your…
Identity, Family, Belief: Novelist Silas House Chats Writing about Appalachia
Posted on July 31, 2017Arguably the most prolific gay novelist in Appalachia, Silas House was born and raised in nearby Laurel County. Educated at Eastern Kentucky University and then Spalding University for a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing, he now teaches at Berea College, the first desegregated and coeducational college in the South.…
Think Globally, Act Hillbilly: A Road Trip through Kentucky on Grindr, Tinder
Posted on July 21, 2017A huge part of me grew up closeted in Kentucky, and I know that—in a state of roughly four million folks—lots of other boys did, too. And while the cities of Louisville and Lexington brim with gay bars and rainbow crosswalks, there are plenty of guys living out and proud in smaller towns, too. I wanted to meet and connect with fellow gay men across Kentucky, so I rebooted Tinder and Grindr.…
What is the South?
Posted on July 3, 2017Inspired by a friendly yet fiery conversation with my friend about which states constitute “the South,” I decided to curate a more formal dialogue between Dr. Rachel Afi Quinn, Dr. Trevor Boffone, and myself—all queer people based in Houston with roots spread throughout the region—where we could hash out our ideas on what the South truly is. The following is an edited version of our conversation……
An Ode to Southern Fringes: Navigating Identity as a Queer Texan and Latino
Posted on June 12, 2017A third of my heart is buried in the Kentucky hills, a land of rich, black soil that nurtured my mother’s childhood. My father’s parents immigrated to the United States from Austria and Mexico, but my mother’s family has lived in eastern Kentucky for generations—far back enough that we don’t know where many of them originated before Appalachia.…