Art, Advocacy & Appalachia: A Q&A With Silas House

By Alisha Proffitt • Photos by Matt Johnson

It was an absolute pleasure to speak with Silas House, whose work has for quite some time presented a thoughtful, grounded and honest look at life in Appalachia. From his early novels to his more recent collaborations in music and film, House brings care and clarity to the stories he tells, often providing representation for people and perspectives that don’t always get the attention they ought to. In our conversation, House discusses some of the experiences that have inspired his work and the causes that continue to motivate him. As one who lives through the heart does, House continues to explore fresh territory while staying true to the values that have always guided his voice.

AP: Your early novels, like Clay’s Quilt and A Parchment of Leaves, explore Appalachian life. How have your formative years in Eastern Kentucky shaped your portrayal of the region’s culture and people, and what are some misconceptions often associated with the region? 

SH: Growing up in Eastern Kentucky, among working class rural people, shaped everything about me. It certainly was formative of how I think about storytelling. But I think it instilled a deep sense of injustice in me, too, which is something that shows up in all of my work. I witnessed a lot of people who had so many unfair obstacles put before them, but kept fighting, kept trying. Witnessing that makes tremendous fuel for artists. I think the biggest misconception is that Appalachian people are lazy. The work ethic I was taught there has served me very well. 

AP: You are the first openly gay Kentucky Poet Laureate, how do you see this representation opening doors for LGBTQ+ individuals in Appalachian and Southern communities? 

SH: The main thing is that visibility matters. There simply are not a whole lot of openly gay people in the public eye in the South, and certainly not in Kentucky, so I’m proud to be part of that. I think the more people know someone who is LGBTQ, the more acceptance grows. The best thing about being poet laureate was all the young people who told me it was important to them to see an LGBTQ person talking about these issues and, most importantly, talking about them as multi-faceted people and not just defined by one part of themselves. We exist in many different capacities, not just one or two. 

AP: Your play, This is My Heart for You, addresses the LGBTQ+ experience in Appalachia. What inspired you to bring these narratives to the stage, and what impact do you hope it has on audiences?

SH: That whole play was inspired by a series of hate crimes and other acts of discrimination that happened during the spring and summer of 2011 in rural Kentucky. In Harlan County a young man was beaten nearly to death by two men and two women shouting homophobic slurs, but he managed to escape while his attackers discussed how to dispose of his body. A church in Pike County refused to allow an interracial couple to be married in their sanctuary. A gay couple was removed from a public pool in Hazard for holding hands. At the same time, many people in these communities rallied for equality. I felt that writing about it was a way to modernize and complexify Appalachian narratives. 

Too often our stories are set in the past or are too often about two main things: drugs or coal. Ironically, when the play was produced, we received death threats and protests. We had talkbacks every night to encourage a public dialogue and at those we had some amazing, constructive conversations. I think art can be transformation; it can be a vehicle for social justice. I don’t always have an agenda when I’m writing something, but I do always want to challenge people, and to make them examine what they really believe.

AP: In your collaboration on Tyler Childers’ “In Your Love,” centers around a queer love story. How does storytelling through music challenge stereotypes and create space for inclusivity in traditionally conservative spaces in regions like Appalachia and the South? 

SH: For that video, we had two main challenges: to tell a complex story in three minutes without depending on any tropes or stereotypes about gay people and rural people. Tyler Childers was very generous in giving me complete creative control on the video, which means that I got to cast it. I made the “look book”, which gives major guidance on costumes and set designs. I was involved in every aspect of it. One of my main concerns was making sure that rural people were shown with dignity and complexity. No dirty clothes and falling down shacks. I took pictures of my own family during the time period (the 1950s) to show the RCA executives how rural people actually looked back then. When they weren’t at work they looked like movie stars! Dressed to the nines, always perfectly coiffed. Living in clean houses they cared for. So that’s the look in the video and I’m proud of that. You don’t see rural or Appalachian people presented like that enough in the media. 

At the same time one of my main goals was to show that queer people have always lived in rural places, and that they still do, and that comes through strongly in the video. It became the first country music in history to show a gay love story and the cast and crew all went above and beyond because we all knew we were doing something special. When we were shooting the last scene, where one of the main characters dies, many of us were weeping. The costume designer leaned over to me and said “I’ll see you at the Grammys for this one.” I thought that was so far-fetched that I didn’t even watch the nomination announcements, but then the phone started ringing and woke me up. I think the reason we got that Grammy nomination is because we all gave it everything we had and because we were leading with the truth. I’m really proud of that video. And the best part for me is that my husband and I came up with the story idea together. 

AP: You’ve been involved in environmental activism, particularly against mountaintop removal coal mining. Does your advocacy intertwine with your literary work? 

SH: I think writing is inherently about preservation for me. I grew up around people who were always telling these epic stories, but the stories often changed or died with the tellers. Even as a child I knew that I wanted to write the stories down so they’d last longer. And the number one thing I’m thinking about with environmentalism is preservation. We have an aversion to wilderness–and wildness– in this country. It’s like the deeply troubling concept of Manifest Destiny is so ingrained in us as Americans that we constantly feel the need to tame the wild places, to destroy them, to shape them to our needs. I believe the main reason so many writers, musicians, actors, any kind of artist,is environmentally minded is because art teaches us a deeper empathy. And the natural world, if we pay attention to it, teaches us empathy, too. So yes, it’s all connected. 

AP: Where would you direct readers who would also like to support these initiatives?

SH: My favorite environmental group right now is the Kentucky Natural Lands Trust. Their whole mission is to protect land by buying it and letting it grow wild. I love how simple and effective this mission is. I’m really lucky to own enough property around my home to let a lot of it grow wild–no mowing, no pruning, no taming at all–and it has been transformative for me. I feel like I live in a park now instead of just in a yard. We have more birdsong, more cricket noise, more lightning bugs, more shade, more wildflowers. People say, but don’t you also have more insects? Well, yes, but when you let the world do its own thing that takes care of itself. We are not descended upon by mosquitoes because we have plenty of bats and birds and frogs who get rid of them for us. What I’m getting at is that it’s important to be a part of groups like KNLT, or at least to donate to them, but we can also make small changes in our own lives that matter. If everybody would just turn off their lights when they leave a room, that would make a huge difference to the amount of coal that is consumed. Little things add up. So I encourage people to support environmental groups but also to be true environmentalists in their everyday life. 

AP: Teaching at Berea College, the first desegregated and coeducational college in the South, how do you approach guiding students who are navigating their identities within the context of Appalachian culture? 

SH: That becomes more difficult because academia itself often negates the rural and Appalachian experience. They’re taught to lose their accents so they’ll have more job opportunities. They’re taught to reject their culture because it seems “backward” or “old fashioned”. I’m an apostle for being who you are and not giving up parts of yourself to please others. Of course we need to try to better ourselves, but there is nothing wrong with having an accent. Accents make the world more beautiful and more interesting. If somebody has a judgment of me simply because they think my accent sounds like poverty or ignorance, that’s their problem. I know who I am. I know my level of intelligence. So I try to instill pride in one’s culture in all of my students, no matter if they’re from Appalachia, Ukraine, Liberia, or wherever. 

AP: What stories or causes are you most passionate about exploring in your future work? 

SH: I have a new book of poetry coming out in September and in it I’m revealing more about my life than I ever have before–fiction makes it easier to hide behind the work whereas poetry thrives on memoir aspects, I think. So I’m excited about it being out in the world. It’s called All These Ghosts. I have always had a deep love for murder-mysteries. One of my first favorite writers was Agatha Christie. So this October I have my first murder-mystery coming out under a slight pseudonym–S.D. House. It’s a commercial book, a page-turner, set in 1950s Appalachia, and centering on a mountain lake where a double murder has happened. The recently disgraced mayor solves the case. It was a lot of fun to write and I hope people will enjoy it. Next summer my next literary novel comes out. Right now it’s called The Tulip Poplars, and I really hope it gets to keep that title. It’s a family saga that covers almost one hundred years in the lives of two couples: one interracial and the other a gay couple. All four of the people are from rural Eastern Kentucky and are trying to be themselves in a world that doesn’t want them to be.