NABS on the Road
- Ilene Evans
- Jun 4, 2025
- 4 min read
Documenting 2024 Black Appalachian Storyteller Fellows
A Ten-Post Series by Ilene Evans
Editor: Karen Abdul-Malik
As we set out to document the Black Appalachian Storyteller Fellows, we follow the vision of our co-Founders Mother Mary Carter and Smith Mama Linda Goss to expand opportunities to tell our stories.
Queen Nur Abdul-Malik and I were on a mission from NABS to learn more about the fellows who won this the 2024 Black Appalachian Storytelling Award funded by Mid Atlantic Arts and South Arts.
Our co-founders are both Black Appalachian Storytellers and so NABS follows in their footsteps honoring that heritage. We went to the awardees’ homes to document their journey in storytelling. With equipment in hand, cameras (plural), voice recorders and mosquito repellent, we packed up the car and made our way to the first teller on our list, Eric Jordan – otherwise known as Monstalung.
The three-hour drive from my home in Kempton, West Virginia, at the beginning of the Potomac River, gave us time to deepen our connection as storytellers and lovers of our rich tradition. I have clocked thousands of miles with Queen and each time we grow in friendship and understanding.
Our Black Appalachian Storytellers exemplify an inherited wealth beyond the common bank account. No household has everything, but every household has something. And that is something to share, barter, and pass on.. One may have only an armful of stories or a laugh, another may have a song or a riddle but in community, they are all gifts of strong Affrilachian values. We were taught that no matter how little we had, we were not to go to a neighbor “empty-handed.” Instilled in us is the sense of helping each other to have a full – ample- cupboard. That also gives way to having a FULL Sense of Well-Being, sweet things, pickled things, salty things, things that are for canning and can go on the shelf in – what is that thing called – a root cellar? Not many people have root cellars anymore, but we have an equivalent preservation mode in our modern times. That’s usually our freezer. I remember the first time I was introduced to how to make Strawberry Freezer Jam. So good. We find ways to extend and expand our wealth while sharing with others. When we share, we all have enough, more than enough.
Being from Appalachia, many of our people have a strong connection to nature and the Earth and its rhythms. That is certainly evident in our fellows this year. We travelled from Tryon, South Carolina to Dayton, Ohio, via Kentucky, Tennessee, parts of West Virginia and Virginia to get a glimpse into the world of their story and their place in the mountains. We find people who love the natural world and feel like something’s missing when they’re not a part of it.
Yes, people who grow up with nature feel like we miss out on something important when we don’t hear the birds, see the new blossoms, or the rising of the ramps and watercress. Something is missing when we are not a part of the spring explosion; or the fall colors; or the bitter cold of winter. Even in winter there’s a sense of purpose in the rhythms of mountain folk. It gives a reason to prepare for the lean times, the cold and harsh winds. It’s all about preparation. There is an urgency to the composition of using the summer harvest, it gives a sense of importance and purpose to activities like preserving, canning, drying, smoking. It is a community dance, even now with all our grocery stores and technology. People move in concert with each other to have homemade items, sharing fruits, and vegetables, berries when they’re in season and apples when they’re in season and peaches when they’re in season.
It gives us a sense of confidence in facing the unknown.
These mountains and rivers are beautiful, but it is not an easy place to live. The story of where we live and our place in the geography becomes a part of Black Appalachian Storytellers’ world and reality. It takes a kind of grit, resilience, courage, and perseverance to navigate all the changes, not just the up and down of the hills or the curves, but the slight differences in temperature make it frosty and slippery or sweetly dry and smooth. We learn to factor in extra time even when the weather is fair. It was a sunny day when we traveled to visit Eric Jordan and his mother, and yet it was best we took the time to honor the roadways – the at-the-edge cliffs and the compounded, confounded curves in those West Virginia mountains.
The Black Appalachian Storytellers Fellowship is made possible in part by Mid Atlantic Arts’ Central Appalachia Living Traditions program and South Arts as part of the In These Mountains, Central Appalachian Folk Arts and Culture initiative.
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