GOOD FOLK is a newsletter, podcast, and community project exploring artistry across rural America and the American South.

We believe in the power of stories to connect us to one another.

We believe that the stories we tell about ourselves matter. One in every five Americans lives in a rural community, and yet the stories we tell of these places are shrouded in stereotype and bias. Furthermore, they are often misrepresentative of what rural and Southern places truly are—places of community, artistry, diversity, joy, innovation, and love, among many other things.

For too long, the narratives of rural and Southern places have been controlled by outsiders. It is time we reclaim our stories, and begin telling them from our own mouths first.

Good Folk brings together a community of artists and individuals passionate about creative practice in and around rural America and the American South—a region with a cultural history steeped in the arts. We believe that the arts are one of our best tools for social change and that that the artists of the American South have long led that charge. We seek to celebrate the good folks contributing to, challenging, and driving the cultural landscape of American artistry.

We publish a regular newsletter and biweekly podcast featuring conversations with artists of rural America and the American South. The Good Folk podcast goes out through our Substack and is available on all major streaming platforms. In addition, we host regular community events in our homebase of central North Carolina; you can stay up to date on our events and learn more on our website.

Any funds made through newsletter subscriptions go towards compensating our contributors.

 

What does it mean to be Good Folk?

If you look up the definition for the word folk, you will find a few things: people in general; a friendly term to address a group of people; a traditional form of art, music or culture; ordinary, down-to-earth, unpretentious people.

The term folk has long been used to describe people from rural and Southern communities, often in a derogatory manner. Folk is a simple term; folks are simple people. But our stories are complex and beautiful and redemptive. We are all of us good people, and it is time the world begins to see that.

To be Good Folk is to remove your assumptions and biases about the world and learn how to pay attention to what is around you. It is to do the mundane and important work of practicing empathy. It is to believe in the radical power of hope and the inherent resistance of joy. It is to hold on to the capacity to be surprised by the world around you. It is difficult to live this way, but it is also free, and freeing. We already possess this capacity within us. Our great work is learning how to harness it. Join us.

 

  • Creator, Writer, and Podcast Host

    Spencer George is a writer and folklorist hailing from the Carolinas. She holds a B.A. in English and Human Rights with a concentration in Creative Writing from Barnard College, an M.A. in Folklore from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and is currently pursuing her PhD in English at Duke University, where she focuses on speculative American fiction and its relationship to environmental futures. She is the creator and writer of newsletter and podcast GOOD FOLK, and has previously supported the production of new stories through work with Girls Write Now, ArtistYear North Carolina, and the StoryCorps Mobile Tour. Her work has been published in The Bitter Southerner, Longreads, The Adroit Journal, and The New Orleans Literary Festival’s Saints and Sinners Anthology. Spencer was the 2019 recipient of the Peter S. Prescott Prize for Prose Writing, a 2023-2024 Maynard Adams Fellow in the Public Humanities, and is a 2024 Duke Climate Communications Fellow. She has traveled to Chile, Nepal, and Jordan to study grassroots storytelling movements, taught yoga to teenage boys at summer camp in Canada, and spent a month backpacking off-grid in Alaska through the National Outdoor Leadership School. She is currently at work on a neo-Southern Gothic novel exploring environmental change in her home of the South Carolina Lowcountry. She can be found on Twitter talking about poetry and forests at @spencerggeorge and reached by email at spencerggeorge@gmail.com.

  • Podcast Producer

    Brennan holds a B.A. from Sarah Lawrence College and is pursuing a Ph.D. in English and Comparative Literature at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is originally from Savannah, Georgia and now resides in Durham, North Carolina. Drives home to see his family take five or five and a half hours. He has to crop a beer out of every picture of him going to professional use, including this one.

 

  • Head of Media and Design

    Victoria currently serves as ArtistYear’s North Carolina Program Coordinator, supporting and mentoring Resident Teaching Artists and expanding partnerships with North Carolina schools, stakeholders, and organizations through collaboration and communication. Prior to this position, Victoria was part of ArtistYear’s first cohort in North Carolina and served two years as a Visual Arts Resident Teaching Artist at Robbins Elementary and Elise Middle School during that time. They have also worked in Event Management and Social Media for The Sandhills Children Center, an early developmental children’s education non-profit, helping them raise over $150,000 and broaden their connections within the community. Victoria graduated with a B.F.A. in Studio Art with a concentration in Photography at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. They are a steadfast believer in giving back and uplifting your people. Their contributions to planning Moore County’s PRIDEFest and music showcases, volunteering with local theaters and creative spaces, and participating in grant panels that fund regional public schools and non-profit art programs are a testament to their love and gratitude for their community. As the Head of Media and Design at GOOD FOLK, Victoria leads branding and marketing and assists with partnerships and outreach to artists and organizations across the American South. Victoria can often be found reading with her cat surrounded by thrifted art and oddities.