"Escape to the Periphery: Commodifying Place in Rural Appalachia" by John B. Stephenson. "Origin Traditions of American Racial Isolates: A Case of Something Borrowed" by David Henige. "Is There an 'Appalachian English'?" by Walt Wolfram. "An Interview with Lee Smith" by Edwin T. Arnold. "The World of William Lynwood Montell" by Gordon B. McKinney. "The Ninety-Ninth Foxfire Book" by Fred Chappell. "As the World Turns: The Melodrama of Harry Caudill" by Steve Fisher (Review essay on Theirs Be the Power: the Moguls of Eastern Kentucky by Harry Caudill).
Shorter book reviews by W.H. Ward (Stories from Tennessee ed. by Linda Burton), Bill Best (Critical Essays in Appalachian Life & Culture: Proceedings of the 5th Annual Appalachian Studies Conference ed. by Rick Simon), Jim Wayne Miller (Dancing on Canaan's Ruins by Jim Clark), and James W. Jordan (Mountaineers and Rangers: A History of Federal Forest Management in the Southern Appalachians, 1900-81 by Shelley Smith Mastran and Nan Lowerre).
Record review by W.K. McNeil (Way Out On The Mountain: Jimmie Rogers' [sic] Songs by Bud Reed, Down Yonder: Old-Time String Band Music from Georgia by various artists, from Folkways Records, and Early American Folk Music and Songs by various artists, from Folkways Records).
Poetry by Kathryn Stripling Byer ("Croon," "Chestnut Flat Mine," "Easter for Willa Mae," and "Soup Pot"), Michael Chitwood ("The Child" and "Dirt Roads"), Rudy Thomas ("Night Life"), Rita Quillen ("The Good Life [for Fred Chappell]"), and Hilda Downer ("Toe River still keeps rhythm to my walk").
Letters to the editor from Douglas P. Dotterweich, Rodger Cunningham, Alan Banks & Jim Foster, and Allen Batteau.
"Signs of the Times."
