02/10/2024
A note from the publisher of RIFT,
(and a call for old stories from Appalachia)
I live in Appalachia, in the heart of the damage of Hurricane Helene. Dear friends and former students of mine have lost everything in this tragedy. I’ve driven some of the roads that have now fallen into rubble and mud at the bottom of mountainsides. Like so many here, I am grieved, trying to find ways to help.
For nearly a year, Sky Turtle Nova has been planning to release the first book in a YA Appalachian Trilogy in October of 2024. That timing seems uncanny now.
We selected this book for publication because we wanted to draw attention to the rich, beautiful history of Appalachian storytelling and how this connects to our region’s ancient Celtic roots. Amid all the comic stereotypes of our region, we wanted honor the romance, dignity, and haunted beauty of these mountains.
Little did I know then that the library that inspired this book series would sit in a town hit by Hurricane Helene. This library is close to my heart because a friend of mine was the head librarian there for several years. I once helped her with a drive to collect books to fill the shelves for that sweet rural community.
The screen shot I’m including shows you where Unicoi sits in relation to the floods. For many months, I have been excited to help people learn about Unicoi and her beautiful library, tucked into a former train station. But now, as I drive through local rural areas to help deliver supplies, I see how long it will take us to recover.
At the same time, it’s been wonderful to see how my fellow Appalachians have worked to help one another. Selflessly, relentlessly, they have pitched in to do what it takes to try to save and restore their neighbors.
This is the context in which I sit as I invite you to learn about Sky Turtle’s new trilogy, RIFT.
This young adult series tells the story of a teenage girl who ends up living with her Appalachian grandmother after a horrific personal tragedy. Here, she discovers what the Celts call a “thin place”—a region in which the physical and spiritual worlds is unusually narrow.
The award-winning author and internationally respected writing teacher, Steven James, also lives in Appalachia. Everyone who has read the first book has loved it.
I’ve spent days trying to think about how to share this book with you.
Like many who live in this area, I’ve slept very little the past week, scrolling, reading stories, trying to figure out how to do what needs to be done physically for this crisis. But as I woke up this morning, I wondered if we could use the timing of this book release to provide a different sort of relief.
Could we tell stories together?
If you are an Appalachian, if you have an Appalachian grandparent, if you have somewhere somehow encountered one of the rich stories from our region, could you share a tale below this post?
Your story could be short, long, funny, haunted, even a fragment of a story that you can’t remember entirely. If we gather enough, maybe we could even collect them into a separate book that could build relief funds for the area? I'm not sure. But stories do matter, even now, while the mountains crumble.
We also need boots (and mules) on the ground. We need volunteers at shelters. We need water. We need baby formula.
But stories have given Appalachians courage and hope despite hardship for centuries. So, amid all the grief and the long sleepless nights, let's gather around the fire and remind one another of why we have loved these mountains and why we always will.
I’ll include a pre-release link for RIFT below.
In the next few days, we will also be adding a free, downloadable RIFT-themed RPG campaign that two of our fans created. And, we are uploading a fun, Halloween bingo board to our website in the next day or two, if anyone wants to participate in a social media challenge.
Thank you for helping us tell stories.
Stay strong, Appalachia.
We will get through this together.
Rebecca K. Reynolds
Publisher, Sky Turtle Press
https://a.co/d/6fDiA3f
