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Renowned author of 19 books and former NASA engineer Homer Hickam sits down with me and a few students at UVA's College at Wise to talk about his journey from the coalfields of West Virginia to becoming a celebrated author and esteemed engineer. In this episode, Hickam shares his experiences writing Rocket Boys and other books, the inspiration to write both fiction and nonfiction, and his most memorable projects at NASA. He also discusses his encounters with industry icons, the challenges and rewards of different genres, and offers practical advice to aspiring writers and engineers. Hickam recalls stories about the making of the ''October Sky'' movie and thoughts on the evolving publishing industry.

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*Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and review the podcast (if you like it)!
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*Subscribe to support the podcast on the Facebook Talking Appalachian page, or here at our Patreon page to get bonus content:
Talking Appalachian Podcast | Covering the Appalachian Region from North to South | Patreon
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*To sponsor an episode or collaborate: talkingappalachianpodcast@gmail.com or message me at the link here or on social.

Unless another artist is featured, acoustic music on most episodes: "Steam Train" written by Elizabeth Cotten and performed by Landon Spain

What did you think of this episode?

*From the Season 1 Archive*

"Molassey," as that smoky, syrupy mixture is known in central Appalachia, is a dying tradition. Appalachians call the process of making molasses a 'stir-off,' and everybody in the community would come by to help or sit around the boiling pan and talk.

The word 'molasses' becomes 'lasses' or 'molassey' in the local dialect, a vernacular blend resulting from English, German, and Scotch-Irish migrants who flooded the Appalachian mountains in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Molasses-making was an annual event every October in my family for years, so I'm sharing the process of a molasses 'run' from the podcast archive to talk about why we count it among our favorite memories.

Dialect source: Dictionary of American Regional English

Support the show

*Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and review the podcast (if you like it)!
*Support the show by sharing links to episodes on social
*Subscribe to support the podcast on the Facebook Talking Appalachian page, or here at our Patreon page to get bonus content:
Talking Appalachian Podcast | Covering the Appalachian Region from North to South | Patreon
*Paypal to support the show: @amyclarkspain
*Follow and message me on IG, FB, YouTube: @talkingappalachian
*To sponsor an episode or collaborate: talkingappalachianpodcast@gmail.com or message me at the link here or on social.

Unless another artist is featured, acoustic music on most episodes: "Steam Train" written by Elizabeth Cotten and performed by Landon Spain

What did you think of this episode?

Jeff Biggers is the author of The United States of Appalachia, In Sardina, Trials of a Scourge, and many more. You've heard me discuss his work on the podcast, particularly in New England, where we visited the grave of Washington Irving, who first proposed that the country's name be changed from "America" to "Appalachia." Biggers' book, published 20 years ago, is a "re-storification" of Appalachia, as he puts it. He seeks to reveal the innovators in music, literature, resistance, and politics who are almost never associated with the region but were born and sometimes shaped here.

In this bonus episode, Jeff met with members of a class I teach at UVA-Wise, where he recounted meeting the great Don West as a 19-year-old hitchhiker. His education about Appalachia began with this meeting, when West started asking a series of questions with "Did you know....?"

Biggers didn't know any of what West told him about Appalachia, but that meeting made him question why he didn't know.

Did you know that Nina Simone, from Appalachian North Carolina, sang "Black is the Color of My True Love's Hair" in New York City? It was a mountain ballad she learned growing up.

Did you know the first woman to win the Nobel prize for literature was born in West Virginia?

Did you know the first abolitionist newspaper was founded in east Tennessee, where Rosa Parks trained in nonviolent protest four months before she refused to give up her seat on that bus?

Biggers discusses how his journey took him from Appalachia and across the world, most notably to Italy where he saw familiar themes in the way people from particular areas were perceived. The loss of his family's farm brought him back to Appalachia for a reckoning with what happens when land that is generations-old is erased.

Support the show

*Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and review the podcast (if you like it)!
*Support the show by sharing links to episodes on social
*Subscribe to support the podcast on the Facebook Talking Appalachian page, or here at our Patreon page to get bonus content:
Talking Appalachian Podcast | Covering the Appalachian Region from North to South | Patreon
*Paypal to support the show: @amyclarkspain
*Follow and message me on IG, FB, YouTube: @talkingappalachian
*To sponsor an episode or collaborate: talkingappalachianpodcast@gmail.com or message me at the link here or on social.

Unless another artist is featured, acoustic music on most episodes: "Steam Train" written by Elizabeth Cotten and performed by Landon Spain