Red Emma’s

This collection is a thought-provoking hoot and a holler of “we’re queer and we’re here to stay, cause we’re every bit a piece of the landscape as the rocks and the trees” echoing through the hills of Appalachia and into the boardrooms of every media outlet and opportunistic author seeking to define Appalachia from the outside for their own political agendas.

Multidisciplinary and multi-genre, Y’all necessarily incorporates elements of critical theory, such as critical race theory and queer theory, while dealing with a multitude of methodologies, from quantitative analysis, to oral history and autoethnography.

This collection eschews the contemporary trend of “reactive” or “responsive” writing in the genre of Appalachian studies, and alternatively, provides examples of how modern Appalachians are defining themselves on their own terms. As such, it also serves as a toolkit for other Appalachian readers to follow suit, and similarly challenge the labels, stereotypes and definitions often thrust upon them. While providing blunt commentary on the region's past and present, the book’s soul is sustained by the resilience, ingenuity, and spirit exhibited by the authors; values which have historically characterized the Appalachian region and are continuing to define its culture to the present.

This book demonstrates above all else that Appalachia and its people are filled with a vitality and passion for their region which will slowly but surely effect long-lasting and positive changes in the region. If historically Appalachia has been treated as a “mirror” of the country, this book breaks that trend by allowing modern Appalachians to examine their own reflections and to share their insights in an honest, unfiltered manner with the world.

Zane McNeill is the founder of the DEIJ organization, Roots DEI Consulting and Policy, and co-manager of the labor rights group, Rights for Animal Rights Advocates (RARA). They have published anthologies on anti-carceral veganism and queer and trans liberation with PM Press, Sanctuary Press, and Lantern Publishing and Media. They are also a contributing writer with Sentient Media and Law@theMargins.

Kendall Loyer is a dancer, dancemaker, dramaturg, scholar, educator, photographer, and creative writer. Her movement practice investigates memory, embodied processes of remembering and themes of dispossession, haunting and displacement. Her doctoral research aims to unravel the queer layers of time, geography, and embodiment in Appalachia through the lens of Critical Dance Studies. Her work focuses on performance, storytelling, labor, protest, folk lifeways and the radical worldmaking of “white trash aesthetics” under the necropolitical violence of racial capitalism.

Maxwell Cloe is an independent scholar and oral historian whose work centers on queer Appalachian art and archives. In addition to their writing, they are the director of The Wildcrafting Our Queerness Project, a digital archive of queer Appalachian art and oral history.