Rural Remix

This episode, Making A Living, discusses immigrant involvement in rural economics. The stories featured in this episode explain the influence industries have on determining where new immigrants settle, and offer insights about the cost of pursuing the American Dream as a newcomer. Learn more here. Transcript of this episode in Spanish here.

The first episode of Routes to Roots, Movement Across Time and Place, pushes back on common misconceptions about immigration in rural America. The stories featured in this episode outline the patterns of immigration to the US over time, the factors that influence an immigrant’s difficult decision to leave home, and highlight the vital contributions that immigrants make when they find new homes in...

Our final episode goes beyond the silver screen to talk about real-world aliens – or at least, how people think about aliens in the real world. How have tales of UFOs and abductions been transformed into modern-day folklore? And how have rural communities been shaped by the search for extra-terrestrial life, both real and fictional? Films discussed include: Roswell (1994), Roswell (1999 television...

This episode looks at rural alien movies through an ecological lens. Aliens can function as both extractive forces and as symbols of nature’s raw power. How do aliens both embody nature and battle with it? And how can alien invasions in films warn us of our own environmental degradation?  Films discussed include: Avatar (2009), Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), Invasion of the Body Snatchers...

Honoring ancestors is a human tradition that crosses all cultures. In the southeastern United States, this often takes the form of Decoration Day. That’s when families come together in specially decorated cemeteries to celebrate their roots—sometimes with music and prayers, and almost always with storytelling and a feast. In rural Pickett County, where Tennessee’s Cumberland Plateau and Highland R...

This episode explores alien movies set in the Western United States and the mythology of the American West. Through deep dives into a variety of fascinating films, the spectacle, intrigue, and vastness of this unique landscape is analyzed (Nope, 2022; Asteroid City, 2023). The West’s violent history of expansion and colonization is also highlighted as aliens can become symbols for both colonizers...

Welcome to Crop Circle Cinema. This episode discusses the paranoia embedded in rural alien movies. What do aliens reveal about our anxieties around the government, neighbors, strangers, and friends? Who do we believe? And who can we never trust?  Films discussed include: Signs (2002), Independence Day (1996), Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), The Faculty (1998), The Vast of Night (2019), Worl...

In our latest episode, we talked with Tiffany Joy and Shiloh Delaronde of the Appalachian Rekindling Project . The Appalachian Rekindling Project is based in southeast Kentucky and southwest Virginia. Its mission is to restore Indigenous relationships with the land, support cultural revitalization, and foster ecological care in Appalachia. In the interview, Joy and Delaronde share about their work...

In the pottery world, there’s lots of different ways that makers can fire their work. Thanks to modern technology, most kilns can be fired by just one person over the course of a day. And some kilns don’t even need human supervision. But other, older methods are still around. And for those, it takes a village. In the mountains of western North Carolina, around a dozen potters recently gathered for...

In this episode, Anna Claussen (Voices for Rural Resilience) and Ash Hanson (Department of Public Transformation) talk with Central Iowa muralist and organizer Siriaco “Siricasso” Garcia about the power of art to bring visibility to diversity in rural communities. Siricasso shares how he turned to the canvas to process personal hardship and express experiences too often judged or silenced because,...

Cherokee people have been making pottery in the mountains of western North Carolina for nearly 3,000 years. But after centuries of colonization and targeted, cultural oppression, there are relatively few Cherokee potters carrying on the art form today. Thanks to a community-led pottery workshop, a new generation of Cherokee potters is emerging. They’re sustaining age-old traditions, while building...

For most studio potters, making a new piece starts with opening a fresh bag of commercially produced clay. But Naomi Dalglish and Michael Hunt of Bandana Pottery have a different process. They produce their own clay bodies out of local clay dirt from their community in Bakersville, North Carolina. “A really wonderful side effect is our connection to the place and people where we live. Not just to...

In the week of July 4th Rural Remix takes a look at the first amendment via Federal Communications Commissioner Anna Gomez visit to the Appalachian town of Fleming-Neon, Kentucky. On June 18, 2025 Gomez went to the rural stop on her nationwide tour to protect the First Amendment. The event was hosted by the Center for Rural Strategies, which publishes the Daily Yonder, and featured a panel of expe...

 In this episode we travel to Westel, Tennessee, home to fiddle maker Jean Horner. For more than seventy years, Horner built instruments that traveled across the country—Carnegie Hall to California, the Grand Ole Opry to the Smithsonian.  Two factors shaped Horner’s fiddles. The first was his deep roots in the Cumberland Plateau. The second? His fascination with great Italian violin makers of the...

In this Beyond the Clock episode, Ash Hanson from Department of Public Transformation and Anna Claussen from Voices for Rural Resilience converse with Eastern Kentucky-based artist and advocate, Lacy Hale about resilience, restoration, and reciprocity in rural places. In this conversation, they explore the role of the artist in times of disaster and division. Lacy inspires us to advocate for our r...

What’s it like to cover the renewable energy transition in rural America? Daily Yonder reporters Claire Carlson and Julia Tilton spoke with Canary Media’s Kari Lydersen during a live show recording at the Rural Journalism Collective on May 14, 2025. This week, we’re bringing you an edited version of that conversation. Kari has spent extensive time reporting on coal mining communities and the clean...

Today’s story takes us to western North Carolina, where the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians is working to preserve the Cherokee language.  Their dialect of Cherokee is considered “severely endangered” by UNESCO.  To help revitalize the language, community leaders opened the New Kituwah Academy in 2004.  It’s a Cherokee language immersion school for elementary-age students.  A partnership with a p...

In the final episode of Twang, host Lane Wendell Fischer and Daily Yonder reporter Ilana Newman explore queerness in country music’s past and present. Though there is only one openly queer artist currently signed by a major country music label, the rising popularity of artists like Chappell Roan, Orville Peck, and Brandi Carlile mark the increasing visibility of queer artists in the genre. Lane an...

In the third episode of Twang, host Lane Wendell Fischer is joined by writer, marketing specialist, and country music enthusiast Tracy Staley to discuss the role women have played in the development of country music. Despite the genre’s conservative reputation, iconic artists like Loretta Lynn, Dolly Parton, and Reba McEntire have used country music as a platform to discuss issues from birth contr...

This week, Daily Yonder reporters Claire Carlson and Julia Tilton are continuing the conversation about environmentalism in rural places. In this episode, Claire and Julia dig deeper into the conservative corner of the climate movement. They speak with Chris Barnard, the president of the American Conservation Coalition (ACC), a nonprofit organization dedicated to mobilizing young conservatives aro...

In the second episode of Twang , host Lane Wendell Fischer is joined by music journalist and cultural critic Taylor Crumpton to explore the deep-rooted, often erased contributions of Black, Mexican, and Indigenous artists to the genre. From Southern guitar traditions and borderland ballads to the Chitlin Circuit to Beyonce’s Cowboy Carter, we trace how cultural exchange shaped the sound of country...

In the first episode of Twang , host Lane Wendell Fischer unpacks the origin story of country music with Tim Marema. We explore how a rich mix of rural traditions became a genre — and how race, class, and geography shaped which stories got told. From front porch fiddles to the invention of the “hillbilly” record, we trace the transformation of a diverse musical culture into a commercial industry t...

More than 55 years after the first U.S. Earth Day was celebrated in small towns and cities by people of all political stripes, the term “environmentalism” conjures different connotations today. Media coverage might have something to do with it. Daily Yonder reporters Claire Carlson and Julia Tilton are joined by Meg Haywood Sullivan and Amelia Joy of Nature Is Nonpartisan, a new organization worki...

For Christians around the world, the lead up to Easter is a time of fasting. Lent is an opportunity to give up your vices and turn your thoughts to God. But for many churches in Appalachia, this time is less about abstaining and more about creating some of the richest, most delicious candies you’ve ever tasted: Chocolate Easter Eggs.

Over the weekend, demonstrators organized in more than 1,200 cities and small towns across all fifty states to protest actions taken by President Donald Trump and his billionaire advisor, Elon Musk. For Daily Yonder reporters Claire Carlson and Julia Tilton, the demonstrations are the latest response to a question that’s been floating around their newsroom for several weeks: What does dissent look...