iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

EdKarshner 🫈 @edkarshner.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

Today was the best bookmail day! A postal dispatch from @hookland.bsky.social itself! My signed copy of @cultauthor.bsky.social's amazing new book. Love the stickers (my daughter took the spicy Norse Gods sticker!) Do you know how long I've wanted a Right to Reside card? Thank you, David

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EdKarshner 🫈 @edkarshner.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

A good story is always the antidote to a bad day. Lucky to have @cultauthor.bsky.social remind me that even bubble gum cards are foundational texts. In @hookland.bsky.social, it's encouraged that one should have the curiosity of a scholar & the wonder of a child.

A draft of David Southwell's work on Hookland as an active act of enchantment.

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EdKarshner 🫈 @edkarshner.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

Last night I tucked myself in & read new "fragments" from @cultauthor.bsky.social's latest literary @hookland.bsky.social Like David, his work is a gentle rebuke/reminder of the personal purpose of lore & enchantment. Stories aren't "collected." Like anything loved, they are pursued w/ devotion.

Approached with politeness and genuine curiosity, people usually want to talk about their folklore. To represent for their locality through it. Especially when they have personal, intimate experience with it. Within us is a hardwired urge to share and transmit its stories. Folklore likes to travel – to possess and jump from person to person so it can walk further – and it has conditioned us from the first fires to enable this in acts of communal storytelling.

A couple of times I got to accompany a Krsnik to the crossroads or a hilltop where a spirit beacon blazed. I learnt about the ecstasies of flame-watching, village circumambulations as a route to the trance, the sorcerer’s sleep needed for magic. Learnt to see landscape as storybook, its landmarks as anchors for folklore. To understand place as a psychic battery holding the charge of tales told across generations.

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EdKarshner 🫈 @edkarshner.bsky.social · 02/08/2026

Yesterday, I made a research trip to Braxton County West VA. The Flatwoods Monster Museum was amazing. The WVa Bigfoot Museum has an exquisite collection of Boggy Creek memorabilia. The jewel was the town of Sutton, a @hookland.bsky.social town where the land asserts itself & refuses to be ignored.

Braxton County West Virginia mural feature the Flatwoods Monster and Bigfoot.

Flatwoods Monster Museum display case with depictions showing the evolution of the monster over time and telling.

A display of movie memorabilia from the cult classic docu-drama The Legend of Boggy Creek.

A burned out bank whose interior, including the vault, is slowly reclaimed by the hills and woods.

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EdKarshner 🫈 @edkarshner.bsky.social · 13/07/2026

After a year of feeling less like my down on his luck folklorist self, I had a weekend that brought me back. A great turnout for my Ohio Brewfest presentation on Mothman and this gorgeous little number in the post from @cultauthor.bsky.social ! (My forward w/in). Let deep summer commence.

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EdKarshner 🫈 @edkarshner.bsky.social · 11/07/2026

Giving myself a one day writing retreat before my Mothman and Mead presentation. I'm staying in a caboose in my own hills and it feels amazing.

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EdKarshner 🫈 @edkarshner.bsky.social · 05/07/2026

100% bringing this energy back to Metaphysical studies!

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EdKarshner 🫈 @edkarshner.bsky.social · 30/06/2026

I'm more than excited to get to represent Dutch Creek Winery for Ohio Brew Week. I'm going to look at how Appalachian Storytelling took Mothman from a "winged weirdo" to our monster. It's going to be fun! (And there's mead!)

Mothman and Mead Sunday July 12th 2-3pm at Dutch Creek Winery.

Mary Hyre newspaper clipping from original Mothman flap

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EdKarshner 🫈 @edkarshner.bsky.social · 29/06/2026

In a few weeks, I'm giving a talk in Athens Ohio on the evolution of Mothman in place and story. It's at a winery. Not my usual venue. I was feeling skeptical. Then, I went to Dutch Creek Winery over the weekend... it's making sense now.

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EdKarshner 🫈 @edkarshner.bsky.social · 25/06/2026

Yesterday I turned an academic meeting at the Pitt Archives into some archival voyeurism with this beauty. Dad and I used watch The Devil Rides Out when it was in rotation on Night Owl Theater in the late 70s. Funny how grief finds it's expression in the weirdest flashes of time and place.

The sign for University of Pittsburgh's Archives and Special Collections.

The title page for the script The Devil Rides Out.

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EdKarshner 🫈 @edkarshner.bsky.social · 13/05/2026

Treating myself to this amazing essay by our @cultauthor.bsky.social. I'm reminded of the wide eyed joy that brought me to folklore & how it sustains me still. In the spirit, my own bit of @hookland.bsky.social of ghost soil as permissive space remembered differently-a Spud Run Rd dark memory.

I believe folklore is the past holding hands with the now as it walks into tomorrow. It's a powerful living current of connection to place, to the past... A way of seeing ourselves in the narratives of place... Folklore is the liar that tells the truth of soil, of place.

A weathered Jesus statue in an Appalachian graveyard.

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EdKarshner 🫈 @edkarshner.bsky.social · 11/05/2026

You have to treat yourself to this story that's like sitting on a porch with a master storyteller I dare you to read a paragraph like this and not nod like you're listening. reckonreview.com/the-exact-mo...

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EdKarshner 🫈 @edkarshner.bsky.social · 30/04/2026

Went to see Patty to check on the broken shelving unit and saw that Patty was representing @meaganlucas.bsky.social's big event next week! Meagan is everywhere! (You got the fancy paper, Meagan!)

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EdKarshner 🫈 @edkarshner.bsky.social · 19/02/2026

As department head, I hit all my contractual deadlines. So, it's back to the book research. Loving this moment but needing to find some consistency.

A messing writing table with The Mothman Prophecies and folklore notes.

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EdKarshner 🫈 @edkarshner.bsky.social · 24/12/2025

Taking some well deserved time off as an administrator to re-discover my research nerd self. I started working on a project that comes out of the work I did for @reckonreview.bsky.social. reckonreview.com/wind-and-roo... I thought you might want to revisit it, too. Happy Wintertide!

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EdKarshner 🫈 @edkarshner.bsky.social · 19/12/2025

A power outage on campus has moved my Jul break up by 4 hours. Let the fun begin!

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EdKarshner 🫈 @edkarshner.bsky.social · 13/11/2025

Los is shocked by this development!!!

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EdKarshner 🫈 @edkarshner.bsky.social · 06/11/2025

Los is totally expressing my mood today!

A dog who has had enough of this foolishness.

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EdKarshner 🫈 @edkarshner.bsky.social · 31/10/2025

I had the awesome experience and life long dream of being interviewed for this NatGeo article on supernatural Appalachia: urldefense.com/v3/__https:/... In the spirit of Halloween, here are some of my Haints, Boogers, and Witches

Blood Alley in Chillicothe Ohio. A haunted space.

My great grandma Maisey an herbal healer from Hocking County Ohio

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EdKarshner 🫈 @edkarshner.bsky.social · 25/10/2025

Last night, for the first time in a long time, I got to take off my department head hat, put on my whimsical folklore T-shirt & trade spreadsheets for folktales. Great Halloween fun with RMU's WLMP. (Once again, thanks to @bereaarchives.bsky.social for the Leonard Roberts material!)

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EdKarshner 🫈 @edkarshner.bsky.social · 06/08/2025

As the new Jarl of English and Media Arts, I felt like a proper chair was in order. Thanks to my friends @grimfrost.bsky.social for the reindeer hide seat cushion!

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EdKarshner 🫈 @edkarshner.bsky.social · 11/07/2025

Representating @robertmorrisu.bsky.social #RMUEnglishMediaArts at our Day One Event...Class of 2029, wow! Thanks to my friends @grimfrost.bsky.social for the folklorist appropriate business casual polo shirt

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EdKarshner 🫈 @edkarshner.bsky.social · 30/06/2025

Hoping work doesn't realize what I'm really reading!

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EdKarshner 🫈 @edkarshner.bsky.social · 12/06/2025

Thank goodness. I think I'm going to be fine.

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EdKarshner 🫈 @edkarshner.bsky.social · 31/05/2025

Los, this morning, telling me about his 210 military press.

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EdKarshner 🫈 @edkarshner.bsky.social · 31/05/2025

The thesis, for me, of @hookland.bsky.social is "ghost soil." I realized how much I didn't understand when I was in the UK and shared space with Roman walls and emperors, Norman masonry. Not buried. Not behind glass...not haunting as return but ghosts as ever present. (Plus a Scotch egg)

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EdKarshner 🫈 @edkarshner.bsky.social · 24/05/2025

My first proper tea! I'm all fancy! And! Bonus! Me hanging out with fellow Ross Countians, the Adena and Hopewell effigy pipes...almost from my backyard!

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EdKarshner 🫈 @edkarshner.bsky.social · 21/05/2025

Getting some @hookland.bsky.social vibes at Alnwick Castle! Gates in a garden wall are always suspect!

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EdKarshner 🫈 @edkarshner.bsky.social · 19/05/2025

Well, I'm in London! Waiting on my connection to Edinburgh. Looking forward to some folklore phantasmagorical (after some real sleep).

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EdKarshner 🫈 @edkarshner.bsky.social · 07/05/2025

Author's Athletic Attire, meet Folklore Fitness! 😂

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EdKarshner 🫈 @edkarshner.bsky.social · 06/05/2025

I was just sending out a very professional email and my phone suggested this correction! It's a sign, a premonition if you will, that my talk at @folkloretodmorden.bsky.social is going to be a wonderful!

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EdKarshner 🫈 @edkarshner.bsky.social · 03/05/2025

Gemini, the smart this or that on my phone, offered this memory up to me today. You know, sometimes I get the idea that algorithms and AI aren't that smart. Either that or Tater has really gone downhill.

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EdKarshner 🫈 @edkarshner.bsky.social · 30/04/2025

You're going to want to see this!!! I'm pouring it all in to pour it out! Trying to stick the landing as we speak (and once the power comes back on 😬) Remember, stateside my talk starts at 2pm est!

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EdKarshner 🫈 @edkarshner.bsky.social · 24/04/2025

In a few weeks, I'm taking students on a whirlwind folklore jaunt through Edinburgh & London. So, what better way to prepare them than with a grimoire of Landscape Punk by the amazing @cultauthor.bsky.social. (I'm heavily borrowing @hookland.bsky.social vibes for their final project!)

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EdKarshner 🫈 @edkarshner.bsky.social · 01/04/2025

If you're interested in what I've been thinking about on sleepless nights after a day of department heading, join me online at @folkloretodmorden.bsky.social for some Appalachian folk-metaphysics. Details here: www.folkloremythmagic.com/event-detail... Hope to see you there!

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EdKarshner 🫈 @edkarshner.bsky.social · 25/03/2025

Me in the national security group chat:

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EdKarshner 🫈 @edkarshner.bsky.social · 14/03/2025

That moment when you realize all your academic studies, from Bettelheim to Zipes, have allowed you to achieve the lofty title of Department Head and now you can tackle the most esoteric of academic quandaries.

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EdKarshner 🫈 @edkarshner.bsky.social · 12/03/2025

In just 40 minutes, Prof @meaganlucas.bsky.social is going to Google into my Senior English Seminar to talk about her Anthony Award nominated collection Here in the Dark from @shotgunhoney.com. Ohhhh... can't wait.

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EdKarshner 🫈 @edkarshner.bsky.social · 14/02/2025

Same for Gen X parents. This CD is the bridge between generations, my friend. (Also, congratulations!)

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EdKarshner 🫈 @edkarshner.bsky.social · 31/01/2025

Writing an article about this amazing book by @meaganlucas.bsky.social Lucas explicates the folk metaphysics of Appalachia in a grit lit focused narrative. I love her articulation of literary agency within an Appalachian natural orientation (see Jack Welch's 1976 essay). Get this book!

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EdKarshner 🫈 @edkarshner.bsky.social · 25/01/2025

I had the great opportunity to be awarded this fellowship @bereaarchives.bsky.social a few years ago. I worked w/ the Leonard Roberts archives & it's a gift that keeps giving. Apply for this wonderful opportunity: americanfolkloresociety.org/media-archiv...

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EdKarshner 🫈 @edkarshner.bsky.social · 25/01/2025

In 10 minutes, I'm going to get busy on a literature and folklore article I'm working on (looking at you @meaganlucas.bsky.social!) So, Los is getting in a power nap before he assumes his research assistant duties.

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