Shirley Noe Swiesz and the Work of Witness
There are writers who study Appalachia, and then there is Shirley Noe Swiesz, who is Appalachia.
She doesn’t write about these mountains from a distance, through the lens of academic theory or cultural commentary. She writes from inside the life itself—from the kitchen, the garden, the memory of hands that worked until they bled, the sorrow that doesn’t announce itself, the joy that arrives unearned on an ordinary Tuesday.
Shirley is, in my estimation, the preeminent folk writer working in the Appalachian space today. Not because she’s trying to be, but because she can’t help it. She writes the way other people breathe. Every day, she sits down and pounds out good work—not for grants or tenure or literary prizes, but because the stories and the people and the truth demand to be told.
I doubt that she has much interest in formal Appalachian studies. She doesn’t need erudition to tell her what she already knows in her bones. She is an Appalachian spirit—the real thing, not the performed version, not the nostalgic myth. She knows what work is. She knows what poverty is. She has lived through deep sorrow and come out the other side still capable of joy. She has paid her life dues, and her writing carries that weight without ever asking for sympathy.
Her work deserves better than the Facebook scroll, where it disappears into the algorithm within days. It deserves a permanent home, a place where readers can return to it, where it can be preserved and honored for what it is: essential testimony to a way of life, a people, and a place that the rest of the world too often misunderstands or ignores.
That’s why I’ve invited Shirley to collaborate here at Shanky Bottom. Her section, Journey of a Mountain Woman, will be a living archive of her daily witness—the stories, the reflections, the hard-earned wisdom of someone who has lived this life fully and honestly.
I’m honored to share this space with her. Read her work. It will teach you something true.
—Joe
I have followed and loved Shirley's work for years. Shirley is truly the Appalachian Spirit you fondly describe in her writing. And now, such a pleasant way to spend New Years Eve enjoying your writing as Shirley introduced you on her FB pages. That "Spirit" is welcoming in the New Year!