Our Connected Culture

Welcome to another season of our connected culture, this one focused on unmasking the past to imagine better futures. I’m MidMountain Curator Andy “River Peterson inviting you to join us in the coming days and weeks to explore how we can learn from hard human history while growing the community we need to grow a kinder world together. Today we are going even more local in our history, exploring the history of Rockbridge County, our holler of Arnolds Valley, and even aspects of this specific property. Also, speaking of community: if you’re listening to this as it’s being released you can join us in person for our MidMountain Masquerade on October 25 from 2pm through 10pm! There'll be opportunities to make your own masks and marionettes, a harvest potluck to share meals, a masquerade with costume contest, live music, and more. Find out more at midmountain.org/masquerade. As a reminder, Our Connected Culture is a production of MidMountain, a 501(c)3 nonprofit, arts collective, and agricultural project operating out of MidMountain Retreat, a five acre riverfront arts space in the Blue Ridge Mountains near Natural Bridge, Virginia. You can check our community calendar for upcoming events or other opportunities to visit, like residencies where we offer discounted stays for folks who want to work on creative projects. Plus, MidMountain Retreat is also available for rent out on Airbnb and VRBO for non-art stays!

Welcome to another season of our connected culture, this one focused on unmasking the past to imagine better futures. Join us in the coming days and weeks to explore how we can learn from hard human history while growing the community we need to grow a kinder world together. We are again returning to Rockbridge Regional Libraries, which joined us in hosting a screening of documentary the indelible Appalachians and a virtual conversion with filmmaker Frederick Murphy. The film explores the history, present, and future of Black identity in Appalachia – and we’re sharing our conversation with Murphy where we explore both the content of the film and his experience as a creative documenting difficult history related to slavery in the American South. That fellowship cohort included author Paul Park – who listeners may remember from our first season as a peer and close friend of the late Terry Bisson – who helped us with the future and fiction-focused elements of the conversation. Plus, the fellows were also joined by local black history scholar Dr. Nneka Dennie – an expert on abolitionist Mary Ann Shadd Cary, a key figure in the MidMountain produced folk opera “Save from Oblivion” that we’ll discuss more at length later in this season. Also, speaking of community: if you’re listening to this as it’s being released you can join us in person for our MidMountain Masquerade on October 25 from 2pm through 10pm! There'll be opportunities to make your own masks and marionettes, a harvest potluck to share meals, a masquerade with costume contest, live music, and more. Find out more at midmountain.org/masquerade. As a reminder, Our Connected Culture is a production of MidMountain, a 501(c)3 nonprofit, arts collective, and agricultural project operating out of MidMountain Retreat, a five acre riverfront arts space in the Blue Ridge Mountains near Natural Bridge, Virginia. You can check our community calendar for upcoming events or other opportunities to visit, like residencies where we offer discounted stays for folks who want to work on creative projects. Plus, MidMountain Retreat is also available for rent out on Airbnb and VRBO for non-art stays!

Welcome to another season of our connected culture, this one focused on unmasking the past to imagine better futures. Join us in the coming days and weeks to explore how we can learn from hard human history while growing the community we need to grow a kinder world together. We are kicking off this season with audio from “Imagining a Better American Future: From Abolition to Science Fiction, and beyond,” an event we hosted with Rockbridge Regional Libraries on March 13, 2025 that featured many of our Spring fellows. That fellowship cohort included author Paul Park – who listeners may remember from our first season as a peer and close friend of the late Terry Bisson – who helped us with the future and fiction-focused elements of the conversation. Plus, the fellows were also joined by local black history scholar Dr. Nneka Dennie – an expert on abolitionist Mary Ann Shadd Cary, a key figure in the MidMountain produced folk opera “Save from Oblivion” that we’ll discuss more at length later in this season. Also, speaking of community: if you’re listening to this as it’s being released you can join us in person for our MidMountain Masquerade on October 25 from 2pm through 10pm! There'll be opportunities to make your own masks and marionettes, a harvest potluck to share meals, a masquerade with costume contest, live music, and more. Find out more at midmountain.org/masquerade. As a reminder, Our Connected Culture is a production of MidMountain, a 501(c)3 nonprofit, arts collective, and agricultural project operating out of MidMountain Retreat, a five acre riverfront arts space in the Blue Ridge Mountains near Natural Bridge, Virginia. You can check our community calendar for upcoming events or other opportunities to visit, like residencies where we offer discounted stays for folks who want to work on creative projects. Plus, MidMountain Retreat is also available for rent out on Airbnb and VRBO for non-art stays!

Two threads that wove through all of last year for us: coming together in creative community in the face of looming climate disaster and reclaiming Appalachian murder ballads.Those might seem like radically different subjects, but the overlap – for us, at least – was using art to grow resilience in the face of grief. Especially with the climate disaster that was Helene hitting so many of our neighbors.This episode features interviews with musician Kristin Hersh (Throwing Muses), artist and climate organizer Denali Nalamalapu, Jason Duncan from the Wilkes County Historical Museum, and discussions with MidMountain Fellows Heather Adams, Sarah Gill, Katherine Fahey, Dan Van Allen, Becky Poole, Miriam Juliana, Elsa Howell, and Marie Anderson.This episode also featured a clip of the Kingston Trio's version of "Tom Dooley" and instrumentals from Betsy Podsiadlo's performance in Fatal Femme Agency during MidMountain Fest in October of 2024.This episode was produced with support from Mid Atlantic Arts' Central Appalachian Living Traditions Program.

The Murder Ballads, Southern Gothic Horror, and Reclaiming Haunted Regional History Panel was originally hosted at Rockbridge Regional Library Glasgow with moderation by Debi Ratcliff in October 2024. The panel included MidMountain co-curator and creator of the Fatal Femme Agency musical history show Andy “River” Peterson; University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill PhD candidate focused on gothic horror and colonization narratives Anna Blackburn; musician and creator of The Ballad of Dena & Andrea podcast+album Becky Poole; regional balladeer Elsa Howell, multimedia artist Marie Anderson, and writer Sarah Gill. You can view the video for "It'll just Take the One" here. This episode also featured clips from Elizabeth LaPrelle, Andy "River" Peterson, and Betsy Podsiadlo performing during MidMountain Fest in October of 2024, as well as a clip from the Ballad of Dena & Andrea by Becky Poole.This episode was produced with support from Mid Atlantic Arts' Central Appalachian Living Traditions Program.

MidMountain's Andy "River" Peterson and Scalawag Magazine's Katie Hanzalik discuss fascist themes examined in Alejandro Jodorowsky's 1968 film Fando y Lis. Up next: Harold and Maude!

Get ready to join us for our virtual film club, the MidMountain Motion Picture Possum Passel, at 1pm on June 16 by learning more about co-host Katie "Magdalene" Hanzalik's Spring 2024 Fellowship and meeting the rest of that Cohort: The Laurel Hells Ramblers, The Timber Bridges, alexis sāga, John Henry Williams, Rachel Feltman & Amy Fuchshofen!Hear Katie's MidMountain exit interview and about the murder ballad gender transition song rising gothic mountain bluegrass band The Laurel Hells Ramblers' finished writing at MidMountain in this episode, including a snippet of the song's premiere here back in March!Plus, learn about the open call MidMountain is running through July 29, 2024: We're curating a zine, gallery show, and arts festival for October focusing on reclaiming the Appalachian Murder Ballad genre, folk music too long dominated by regressive and misogynistic gender norms that celebrate violence against women, in conjunction with a themed Fall 2024 Fellowship Cohort that will be offered free lodging at MidMountain Retreat from October 1-October 13. More information at midmountain.org/murderballadFind a link to the MidMountain Discord and the Google Meet for our Motion Picture Possum Passel discussion of Fando y Lis on June 16 at 1pm on our website at midmountain.org/ourconnectedculture

This episode of Our Connected Culture features more Terry Bisson in the form of his own narration of The Left Left Behind, his entry into PM Press’ Outspoken Authors series courtesy of the publisher. Plus, a preview of our new Motion Picture Possum Passel with Katie Hanzalik, Spring 2024 Midmountaineer, new board member and the writer of This Week in the South for Scalawag Magazine. We’re going to be discussing fascism and what it means to work in opposition to it through the lens of film every other week, starting with a virtual film club talking about Alejandro Jodorowsky’s Fando y Lis on June 16 at 1pm EST. More info at www.midmountain.org/ourconnectedcultureYou can support our work and get postcards of great art for as little as $5 a month by joining MidMountain by Mail! More info at: www,midmountain.org/mail

In season one of Our Connected Culture we explore how late science fiction author Terry Bisson’s lifelong activism was central to how he imagined a better world in his 1988 novel Fire on the Mountain, using previously unreleased and archival audio of Bisson and as well as interviews with friends and comrades including Peter Coyote, Kim Stanley Robinson, Annalee Newitz, Paul Park, Mary Corey, John Kessel, Cory Doctorow, Jacob Weisman, Rina Weisman, and Karen Brenchley.The episode features commentary from Kim Stanley Robinson, Annalee Newitz, Paul Park, John Kessel, Jacob Weisman, Rena Weisman, Karen Brenchley, Cory Doctorow, and Ramsey Kanaan talking about the role Terry played in creating progressive science fiction community. This is also the final book club episode for Fire on the Mountain, covering through the end of this an alternative history centering around a socialist utopia emerging in the U.S. South a hundred years after the success of the Harpers Ferry raid led by John Brown sets off a self-emancipating revolution.We’re going to talk about Terry for two more weeks here at Our Connected Culture before closing up this season: Next week, we’ll be sharing audio of Terry narrating The Left Left Behind, Terry’s own contribution to the PM Press Outspoken Authors series he edited, that was shared with us by the publisher. (Thank you again to Ramsey and everyone else over there.) Then at the end of the month will have one last episode of this season to go deeper on Tomorrowing, the collection of Locus columns we talked about briefly today and during our first episode. We’re also going to keep our virtual book club going, so you can join us to talk about Tomorrowing in our Discord for a live discussion at 1pm eastern time on May 26th! Tomorrowing was released by Duke University Press and they have also graciously shared a discount code with us for this book club: use E24BSSON to save 30% off the book in their official store. Link to the Discord and more information about our release schedule at midmountain.org/ourconnectedcultureWe’ve also created a curated list of related works at bookshop.org/shop/MidMtn, (MidMountain is an affiliate of Bookshop.org and will get a small commission to support our work if you purchase from our links)MidMountain is a cooperative production of MidMountain, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, arts collective, and project in constant growth that believes in the power of people to reclaim space and caring for your neighbors — no matter how far away they are. This episode written, reported, and edited by Andy "River" Peterson. Original audio for this episode produced by QRAWN and Big 22 4 Lyfe Productions.You can support our work and get postcards of great art for as little as $5 a month by joining MidMountain by Mail. More info: midmountain.org/mail

In season one of Our Connected Culture we explore how late science fiction author Terry Bisson’s lifelong activism was central to how he imagined a better world in his 1988 novel Fire on the Mountain, using previously unreleased and archival audio of Bisson and as well as interviews with friends and comrades including Peter Coyote, Kim Stanley Robinson, Annalee Newitz, Paul Park, Mary Corey, and John Kessel.The episode features commentary from Terry himself, Mary Corey, Peter Coyote, Cory Doctorow, Ramsey Kanaan and just a tiny preview of the Science Fiction in San Francisco crew who are going to be the focus of our next episode. We cover up through page 119 of the 2009 PM Press edition of the book and go deep into the revolutionary philosophies that inspired Fire on the Mountain, the work Terry did as part of the above ground radical movement by editing the Committee’s newsletter “Death to the Klan,” and his stint in prison to defiance of a Grand Jury subpoena targeting underground activists connected to militant work with the May 19th Communist Movement.We’ll also talk about the importance of imagining better futures and building inclusive communities through a virtual book club of Fire on the Mountain, an alternative history centering around a communist utopia emerging in the U.S. South a hundred years after the success of the Harpers Ferry raid led by John Brown sets off a self-emancipating revolution. Join the bookclub in the MidMountain Discord for a stream covering through the end of the book 1pm ET on May 12, 2024.Link to the Discord and more information about our release schedule at midmountain.org/ourconnectedcultureWe’ve also created a curated list of related works at bookshop.org/shop/MidMtn, (MidMountain is an affiliate of Bookshop.org and will get a small commission to support our work if you purchase from our links)MidMountain is a cooperative production of MidMountain, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, arts collective, and project in constant growth that believes in the power of people to reclaim space and caring for your neighbors — no matter how far away they are. This episode written, reported, and edited by Andy "River" Peterson. Original audio for this episode produced by QRAWN and Big 22 4 Lyfe Productions.You can support our work and get postcards of great art for as little as $5 a month by joining MidMountain by Mail. More info: midmountain.org/mail