To the surprise of many who were raised on Hee Haw and The Beverly Hillbillies, the Appalachian region, rich with Scots-Irish, African-American, Hispanic, European, and Native American influences, positively simmers in diversity, like a pepper sauce in the stew that makes up the region’s populace. An expanse where abject squalor lives hand-in-calloused-hand with blue collar…

“The Ballad of Cherrystoke and Other Stories” by Melanie McGee Bianchi — Southern Literary Review