Erik Reece is an American writer, the author of two books of nonfiction Lost Mountain: A Year in the Vanishing Wilderness: Radical Strip Mining and the Devastation of Appalachia and An American Gospel: On Family, History, and The Kingdom of God, and numerous essays and magazine articles, published in Harper’s Magazine, The Nation, and Orion Magazine. He also maintains a blog “The Future We Want” for True/Slant.
Erik Reece
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The Schools We Need
IT’S A COLD DECEMBER EVENING in Lexington, Kentucky, and I’m sitting by the fire with a teetering stack of final essays from ENG 104: Freshman Comp. I know what I’m in Continue reading
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Redemption Songs
ON A BEAUTIFUL SUMMER NIGHT, Emmylou Harris is taking the stage at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, and it is quite a thing to see. In black cowboy boots and flowing Continue reading
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The New Old-Fashionism
WHEN I FIRST HEARD that Actors Theatre of Louisville was mounting a production called Wild Blessings, adapted from the poetry of Kentucky farmer and writer Wendell Berry, I had two immediate Continue reading
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Hell Yeah, We Want Windmills
ON A WARM SEPTEMBER AFTERNOON, I pulled off the interstate in Charleston, West Virginia, under a billboard that read, in stark black letters: YES, COAL. clean, carbon neutral coal I drove Continue reading
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Notes from a Very Small Island
WITH MY SOLO CANOE loaded down by camping gear and a cooler full of beer, wine, and cold cuts, I paddle out onto Lake Umbagog, a quiet eight-thousand-acre body of water Continue reading
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Reclaiming a Toxic Legacy Through Art and Science
THROUGHOUT PENNSYLVANIA, THE VFW HALLS look much the same — a bar stretches across the front and a bingo parlor sits behind it. In 1995, T. Allan Comp, a historic preservationist Continue reading
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Moving Mountains
NOT SINCE THE GLACIERS PUSHED toward these ridgelines a million years ago have the Appalachian Mountains been as threatened as they are today. But the coal-extraction process decimating this landscape, known Continue reading