Marquee Magazine: Life in the Mountain South

g’Earls just wanna have fun!

The members of Uncle Earl are seated in a dimly lit Chinese restaurant. Suddenly a gang of cloggers, led by a vicious Gwen Stefani look-alike in blonde ponytails, charge through the doors and challenge a table of rival cloggers. Uncle Earl, sensing the imminent battle, put down their chopsticks and ...

Blackberry Farm: A Smokies Shangri-la

The sweeping valley view is hypnotic. It beckons the soul to go soaring, releasing the cords of worries and cares that have tied it down too long. Here, you can get lost just sitting on the veranda. Despite its unpresumptuous name, Blackberry Farm is a close-to-home Shangri-la. Guests at this ...

Barbara Kingsolver Gets Back to Basics

Lush, green hillsides and drizzling rain in the Mountain South might get taken for granted by some people. Not so for the gardeners among us, including best-selling author Barbara Kingsolver. The bountiful land in Southern Appalachia is one compelling reason that Kingsolver was “called home” to Southwestern Virginia a few ...

Cumberland Gap: Off the Beaten Path

Overlook this tiny town—then wind down the mountain for a visit. With its wealth of history and community hospitality, Cumberland Gap is ideal for a truly tucked-away retreat. A rather nondescript exit ducks off US-25E just before the impressive maw of a tunnel plunges under the Tennessee-Kentucky border. Off the exit, ...

Asheville ZombieWalk Seeks Braaiiinnns

Downtown Asheville, N.C., typically quiets down a bit on Sundays, with many shops closed and the streets emptier, but not on this past Sunday, October 26th. Just as dusk was falling, hundreds of folks gathered at Asheville's Montford Ballfield to take part in a new annual Asheville tradition: the ZombieWalk. Appropriately, death metal ...

Beauty and the Beast at Barter

This Fall, the lobbies, rehearsal halls and stages of the Barter Theatre in Abingdon, Va., will be ringing out in resounding praise of love: magical, fantastical, Disney storybook love. In a world starved of romance, where text messages have replaced love letters and ballrooms host politicians rather than dancers, the ...

Fundraising Events Aid RiverSculpture Festival

When sinuous dancers, rollicking bands, and laughing children all combine in a riverfront park teeming with exquisite sculpture, you end up with a cultural event that packs a powerful, profound punch. For three years now, Arlene Winkler and her husband, sculptor Robert Winkler, have teamed up to foster a ...

Perfect Summer Weekends—Your Travel Guide to the Mountain South

Stop watching the grass grow. We’ve scoured the Mountain South in search of summer fun, divvied up some of the region’s hottest attractions and activities, and packaged them neatly into half a dozen recommended experiences for 10 discriminating “personalities” commonly found among Marquee Mountain South readers. Some recommended experiences could ...

Front Row Seats: Music on the Square

To many people in the Mountain South, a summer without music is like a rhododendron without a bloom, like biscuits without gravy, like a fiddle without a bow. And so, on any given summer Friday, locals and visitors to Jonesborough, Tenn., gather to enjoy Music on the Square, a free ...

Transformed: The Inn at Crestwood

When renowned architect Claus Moberg and his interior-designer wife, Jean, went looking for a spot to build a summer home on for their family, they found a partial apple orchard between Boone and Blowing Rock, N.C., with an amazing 180-degree view. It was perfect. In 1948, they purchased 30 acres ...