My Region.............My People................My Appalachia

    http://www.AppalachiaCoal.com
       The goal of this site is to help sustain, preserve and enhance the Appalachian Heritage culture to raise awareness of the individualist spirit that has sustained this region. 
      The site has numerous first-person interviews with the Scots-Irish
 settlers and other immigrants who have struggled through coal mine tragedies, union wars, floods, and industrialization and de-industrialization to help form the modern Appalachia.  It has prescriptions for reform,  celebrations of things that are worth preserving in the modern world, and paints a unique portrait of mountain people in their own words
                                                                             Jim Branscome, Appalachian Author

B. L. Dotson-Lewis, creator
 webmaster@appalachiacoal.com

 "Appalachia:  Spirit Triumphant" (a cultural odyssey of Appalachia)  2004
self-published, ISBN:  0-7414-1874-6, 8.5 x 11" - 261 pages, $18.95

  *Appalachian Studies Association presentation - March, 2003 Eastern Kentucky University, combined presentation with Penny Loeb, Senior Editor U. S. News and World Report -- our presentation -- Appalachia meets the worldwide web.

* International Mining Congress, Hokkaido, Japan, September, 2003.  My topic was on the subject of the importance and techniques for preserving regional history by an individual.  I toured many areas in Japan speaking about the unique and beautiful heritage of the Appalachian people.

*International pen pal club originator/coordinator for schools in Japan & Appalachia
*Veterans Day Program, Zela Elementary - Speaker
* West Virginia Book Festival - October 16-17, 2004, Charleston, WV
*Joined Fayette County Black Lung Association, October, 2004
* Attended Kentucky Story Tellers Association Conference, Bardstown, KY, Nov. 7, 2004
*Attended National Black Lung Conference, Carrollton, KY, Nov. 19, 2004
*Book juried into Tamarack, Beckley, WV.  Nov. 29, 2004
*Literary Lunch, Ivy & Stone & Nicholas County Book Club - Speaker, Dec. 2, 2004
*Nicholas County Historical Society,  January 6, 2005

American Authors Association
Military Writers of America

----------
     My family is from Buchanan County, Virginia.  Their parents came to Virginia as early settlers from North Carolina and Tennessee.   We moved to Summersville, West Virginia when I was small so I attended public schools in West Virginia. 

       I graduated from Nicholas County High School in Summersville, West Virginia and attended Berea College, Berea, Kentucky.  I graduated from Glenville State Teachers College

     I am  employed by the Nicholas County Board of Education. 

     Living so high in the mountains where you can nearly touch the stars by night and the clouds rest on the treetops by day, gives  life a new meaning daily.

     Until this website, I spent  my free time as an Appalachian Artisan, specializing in textile arts; designing and making quilts, wall hangings and  flags with an Appalachian theme.