Jeff Biggers
Encyclopedia
Jeff Biggers is an American writer, editor, journalist, playwright, critic, master storyteller and performance artist. He is the author of three books, and co-editor of a fourth.
Biggers has worked as a writer, educator and community organizer across the United States, Europe, India and Mexico. His award-winning stories have appeared on NPR, PRI, CNN, Salon.com, the Washington Post, and in scores of travel, literary and music magazines, and national and foreign newspapers, and various anthologies. He has been a commentator on National Public Radio’s Morning Edition and for Pacific News Service national syndication. His work has received numerous honors, including an American Book Award, the Sierra Club's David R. Brower Award, Foreword Magazine Book of the Year Award, a Lowell Thomas Award for Travel Journalism, a Field Foundation Fellowship, a Plattner Award for Appalachian Literature, a Delta Award for Literature in Southern Illinois, and an Illinois Arts Council Creative Non-Fiction Award. He serves as a contributing editor to The Bloomsbury Review, and is a member of the PEN American Center. In the 1990s, as part of his work to develop literacy and literary programs in rural, reservation and neglected communities in the American Southwest, he founded the Northern Arizona Book Festival.
Biggers is a frequent performer and speaker at festivals, theatres, conferences, universities and schools across the country.
In the 1980s, Biggers served as an assistant to former Senator George McGovern
in Washington, DC, and as a personal aide to Rev. William Sloane Coffin
at the Riverside Church in New York City. As part of his work with the homeless in New York, Biggers co-founded the Interfaith Assembly on Housing and Homelessness. Born in Ohio, raised in Illinois and Arizona, he earned a B.A. in History and English at Hunter College in New York City. He also studied at the University of California in Berkeley, Columbia University and the University of Arizona.
As the grandson of a coal miner
from southern Illinois, Jeff Biggers has also been a vocal critic of mountaintop removal in Appalachia
and reckless strip mining across the nation, as well as poorly enforced black lung and mining workplace safety laws, and the fallacy of "clean coal
" slogans. Reckoning at Eagle Creek examines the loss of his family's 200-year-old homestead to strip mining, and the historical parallel impact of coal mining on communities and their environment.
The United States of Appalachia argues that beyond its mythology in the American imagination, Appalachia has long been a vanguard region in the United States-—a cradle of U.S. freedom and independence, and a hot bed for literature and music. Some of the most quintessential and daring American innovations, rebellions, and social movements have emerged from an area often stereotyped as a quaint backwater. In the process, immigrants from the Appalachian diaspora have become some of our nation's most famous leaders. The Asheville Citizen-Times
reviewed it as a "masterpiece of popular history...revelations abound." According to a review in the San Antonio Express-News
, the book is "full of historical insights...debunking stereotypes is one of the driving motivations behind Biggers' writing."
In an interview on National Public Radio, Biggers laid out chapters of the progressive history of Appalachia. Specifically, he noted:
∑ Appalachians formed the first District of Washington as a defiant outpost outside of British control
∑ Southern mountain insurgents orchestrated their own attacks on British-led troops, turning the tide of the American Revolution in the South
∑ From an Appalachian hamlet in North Carolina came Nina Simone
, who went on to become an international diva with her blend of folk, jazz, and Bach-motif riffs
∑ Adolph Ochs, a young publisher from Chattanooga, took over the New York Times and set its course for world acclaim
∑ Walter Reuther
of the United Auto Workers
in Detroit, one of the 20th century's most important labor leaders, drew from a long-time activist family in West Virginia
∑The first antislavery newspaper in America was founded in Tennessee, and Appalachians trained New England's legendary abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison
∑ Pearl S. Buck
, the first American woman to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, was recognized for her memoirs of West Virginia as much as for her literary contributions to the Far East
∑ Appalachia produced America's first woman muckraker Anne Royall
, pioneering social realism author Rebecca Harding Davis
, and literary innovators Martin Delany
, Willa Cather
, Thomas Wolfe
, James Still
, Cormac McCarthy
, Edward Abbey
, among many others
∑ Sequoyah
, a Cherokee
mountaineer, invented the first syllabary in modern times
∑ Blues icons, Bessie Smith
and WC Handy, emerged from Appalachia's rich African American musical traditions
∑ Myles Horton
and the Highlander Folk School in Tennessee galvanized the shock troops of the Civil Rights Movement
In the Sierra Madre is a memoir and narrative nonfiction history that chronicles the life and times in one of the most famous, yet unknown, regions in the world. Based on his one-year sojourn among the native Raramuri/Tarahumara, Biggers examines the ways of a resilient indigenous culture in the Americas, the exploits of the Mexican mountaineers, and the parade of argonauts and accidental travelers that has journeyed into the Sierra Madre over centuries. From African explorers, Bohemian friars, Confederate and Irish war deserters, French poets, Boer and Russian commandos, hidden Apache and Mennonite communities, bewildered archaeologists, addled writers, and legendary characters like Antonin Artaud
, B. Traven
, Sergei Eisenstein
, George Patton, Geronimo
and Pancho Villa
, Biggers searches for the legendary treasures of the Sierra Madre (Mexico's Copper Canyon). In the Sierra Madre won the Gold Medal in Foreword Magazine's Book of the Year Awards (Travel Essays) in 2006. The memoir was praised by Booklist
as "an astonishing sojourn." The San Antonio Express-News
reviewed that it was "full of historical insights, and unforgettable characters."
, Biggers has also explored alternatives to coal mining in the coalfield regions, including a proposed industrial wind farm on Coal River Mountain in West Virginia. In several blogs for the Huffington Post, Biggers has appealed to President Barack Obama
, and Vice President Al Gore
, among others, for their help in bringing green jobs to the Appalachian coal fields.
In the Washington Post, Biggers challenged the concept of "clean coal," by examining the extraordinary human and environmental costs of extracting coal, and the still infeasible technologies available for carbon capture and storage of carbon dioxide emissions at coal-fired plants. As a cultural historian, Biggers often explores the devastating impact of mining on uprooting local communities, cultures and histories.
Biggers is also a playwright, whose first play, "4½ Hours: Across the Stones of Fire," explores the fate of a young couple threatened by an impending mountaintop removal mining operation in their community. Produced by the Coal Free Future Project, a collective of artists, actors, filmmakers and musicians co-founded by Biggers, the play has toured nationally and appears on Off Broadway at the Gene Frankel Theatre in New York City on June 4–13, 2010.
freenewmexican.com/news/51243.html "Where Myth is Life"; Free New Mexican newspaper, Santa Fe. Attempt to retrieve article 2010-02-26 unsuccessful. Referred to http://www.santafenewmexican.com and searches by author and title unsuccessful.
In the Sierra Madre interview on NPR's Latino USA
, http://www.latinousa.org/program/lusapgm718.html Attempt to retrieve interview 2010-02-26 unsuccessful. No search capacity at site.
Biggers has worked as a writer, educator and community organizer across the United States, Europe, India and Mexico. His award-winning stories have appeared on NPR, PRI, CNN, Salon.com, the Washington Post, and in scores of travel, literary and music magazines, and national and foreign newspapers, and various anthologies. He has been a commentator on National Public Radio’s Morning Edition and for Pacific News Service national syndication. His work has received numerous honors, including an American Book Award, the Sierra Club's David R. Brower Award, Foreword Magazine Book of the Year Award, a Lowell Thomas Award for Travel Journalism, a Field Foundation Fellowship, a Plattner Award for Appalachian Literature, a Delta Award for Literature in Southern Illinois, and an Illinois Arts Council Creative Non-Fiction Award. He serves as a contributing editor to The Bloomsbury Review, and is a member of the PEN American Center. In the 1990s, as part of his work to develop literacy and literary programs in rural, reservation and neglected communities in the American Southwest, he founded the Northern Arizona Book Festival.
Biggers is a frequent performer and speaker at festivals, theatres, conferences, universities and schools across the country.
In the 1980s, Biggers served as an assistant to former Senator George McGovern
George McGovern
George Stanley McGovern is an historian, author, and former U.S. Representative, U.S. Senator, and the Democratic Party nominee in the 1972 presidential election....
in Washington, DC, and as a personal aide to Rev. William Sloane Coffin
William Sloane Coffin
William Sloane Coffin, Jr. was an American liberal Christian clergyman and long-time peace activist. He was ordained in the Presbyterian church and later received ministerial standing in the United Church of Christ....
at the Riverside Church in New York City. As part of his work with the homeless in New York, Biggers co-founded the Interfaith Assembly on Housing and Homelessness. Born in Ohio, raised in Illinois and Arizona, he earned a B.A. in History and English at Hunter College in New York City. He also studied at the University of California in Berkeley, Columbia University and the University of Arizona.
As the grandson of a coal miner
Coal mining
The goal of coal mining is to obtain coal from the ground. Coal is valued for its energy content, and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extraction of iron from iron ore and for cement production. In the United States,...
from southern Illinois, Jeff Biggers has also been a vocal critic of mountaintop removal in Appalachia
Appalachia
Appalachia is a term used to describe a cultural region in the eastern United States that stretches from the Southern Tier of New York state to northern Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia. While the Appalachian Mountains stretch from Belle Isle in Canada to Cheaha Mountain in the U.S...
and reckless strip mining across the nation, as well as poorly enforced black lung and mining workplace safety laws, and the fallacy of "clean coal
Clean coal
Historically used to refer to technologies for reducing emissions of ash, sulfur, and heavy metals from coal combustion; the term is now commonly used to refer to carbon capture and storage technology...
" slogans. Reckoning at Eagle Creek examines the loss of his family's 200-year-old homestead to strip mining, and the historical parallel impact of coal mining on communities and their environment.
Writings
Winner of the Sierra Club's David Brower Award, "Reckoning at Eagle Creek: The Secret Legacy of Coal in the Heartland" is a family saga, part memoir, cultural history and journalistic investigation, examining the impact of coal mining on Biggers' native region of southern Illinois. Dating back to the removal of Native Americans, the nonfiction book laces the history of Biggers' family and the destruction of their 200-year-old historic community in the Shawnee forests into the development of the coal industry, from African slavery and coal mining, to a century of workplace safety and labor union struggles, to environmental and heritage movements against strip-mining and coal-fired plants. According to Publishers Weekly, "Part historical narrative, part family memoir, part pastoral paean, and part jeremiad against the abuse of the land and of the men who gave and continue to give their lives to (and often for) the mines, [Reckoning at Eagle Creek] puts a human face on the industry that supplies nearly half of America’s energy…it offers a rare historical perspective on the vital yet little considered industry, along with a devastating critique of the myth of ‘clean coal.’ ”The United States of Appalachia argues that beyond its mythology in the American imagination, Appalachia has long been a vanguard region in the United States-—a cradle of U.S. freedom and independence, and a hot bed for literature and music. Some of the most quintessential and daring American innovations, rebellions, and social movements have emerged from an area often stereotyped as a quaint backwater. In the process, immigrants from the Appalachian diaspora have become some of our nation's most famous leaders. The Asheville Citizen-Times
Asheville Citizen-Times
The Asheville Citizen-Times is the major daily newspaper of Asheville, North Carolina. It was formed in 1991 as a result of a merger of the morning Asheville Citizen and the afternoon Asheville Times. It is owned by Gannett.-History:...
reviewed it as a "masterpiece of popular history...revelations abound." According to a review in the San Antonio Express-News
San Antonio Express-News
The San Antonio Express-News is the daily newspaper of San Antonio, Texas. It is ranked as the third-largest daily newspaper in the state of Texas in terms of circulation, and is one of the leading news sources of South Texas, with offices in Austin, Brownsville, Laredo, and Mexico City...
, the book is "full of historical insights...debunking stereotypes is one of the driving motivations behind Biggers' writing."
In an interview on National Public Radio, Biggers laid out chapters of the progressive history of Appalachia. Specifically, he noted:
∑ Appalachians formed the first District of Washington as a defiant outpost outside of British control
∑ Southern mountain insurgents orchestrated their own attacks on British-led troops, turning the tide of the American Revolution in the South
∑ From an Appalachian hamlet in North Carolina came Nina Simone
Nina Simone
Eunice Kathleen Waymon , better known by her stage name Nina Simone , was an American singer, songwriter, pianist, arranger, and civil rights activist widely associated with jazz music...
, who went on to become an international diva with her blend of folk, jazz, and Bach-motif riffs
∑ Adolph Ochs, a young publisher from Chattanooga, took over the New York Times and set its course for world acclaim
∑ Walter Reuther
Walter Reuther
Walter Philip Reuther was an American labor union leader, who made the United Automobile Workers a major force not only in the auto industry but also in the Democratic Party in the mid 20th century...
of the United Auto Workers
United Auto Workers
The International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America, better known as the United Auto Workers , is a labor union which represents workers in the United States and Puerto Rico, and formerly in Canada. Founded as part of the Congress of Industrial...
in Detroit, one of the 20th century's most important labor leaders, drew from a long-time activist family in West Virginia
∑The first antislavery newspaper in America was founded in Tennessee, and Appalachians trained New England's legendary abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison
William Lloyd Garrison
William Lloyd Garrison was a prominent American abolitionist, journalist, and social reformer. He is best known as the editor of the abolitionist newspaper The Liberator, and as one of the founders of the American Anti-Slavery Society, he promoted "immediate emancipation" of slaves in the United...
∑ Pearl S. Buck
Pearl S. Buck
Pearl Sydenstricker Buck also known by her Chinese name Sai Zhenzhu , was an American writer who spent most of her time until 1934 in China. Her novel The Good Earth was the best-selling fiction book in the U.S. in 1931 and 1932, and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1932...
, the first American woman to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, was recognized for her memoirs of West Virginia as much as for her literary contributions to the Far East
∑ Appalachia produced America's first woman muckraker Anne Royall
Anne Royall
Anne Royall , by some accounts the first professional woman journalist in the United States, was born Anne Newport in Baltimore, Maryland....
, pioneering social realism author Rebecca Harding Davis
Rebecca Harding Davis
Rebecca Blaine Harding Davis was an American author and journalist. She is deemed a pioneer of literary realism in American literature. She graduated valedictorian from Washington Female Seminary in Pennsylvania...
, and literary innovators Martin Delany
Martin Delany
Martin Robinson Delany was an African-American abolitionist, journalist, physician, and writer, arguably the first proponent of American black nationalism. He was one of the first three blacks admitted to Harvard Medical School. He became the first African-American field officer in the United...
, Willa Cather
Willa Cather
Willa Seibert Cather was an American author who achieved recognition for her novels of frontier life on the Great Plains, in works such as O Pioneers!, My Ántonia, and The Song of the Lark. In 1923 she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for One of Ours , a novel set during World War I...
, Thomas Wolfe
Thomas Wolfe
Thomas Clayton Wolfe was a major American novelist of the early 20th century.Wolfe wrote four lengthy novels, plus many short stories, dramatic works and novellas. He is known for mixing highly original, poetic, rhapsodic, and impressionistic prose with autobiographical writing...
, James Still
James Still
James Still was an American poet, novelist and folklorist. He lived most of his life in a log house along the Dead Mare Branch of Little Carr Creek, Knott County, Kentucky...
, Cormac McCarthy
Cormac McCarthy
Cormac McCarthy is an American novelist and playwright. He has written ten novels, spanning the Southern Gothic, Western, and modernist genres. He received the Pulitzer Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction for The Road...
, Edward Abbey
Edward Abbey
Edward Paul Abbey was an American author and essayist noted for his advocacy of environmental issues, criticism of public land policies, and anarchist political views. His best-known works include the novel The Monkey Wrench Gang, which has been cited as an inspiration by radical environmental...
, among many others
∑ Sequoyah
Sequoyah
Sequoyah , named in English George Gist or George Guess, was a Cherokee silversmith. In 1821 he completed his independent creation of a Cherokee syllabary, making reading and writing in Cherokee possible...
, a Cherokee
Cherokee
The Cherokee are a Native American people historically settled in the Southeastern United States . Linguistically, they are part of the Iroquoian language family...
mountaineer, invented the first syllabary in modern times
∑ Blues icons, Bessie Smith
Bessie Smith
Bessie Smith was an American blues singer.Sometimes referred to as The Empress of the Blues, Smith was the most popular female blues singer of the 1920s and 1930s...
and WC Handy, emerged from Appalachia's rich African American musical traditions
∑ Myles Horton
Myles Horton
Myles Horton was an American educator, socialist and cofounder of the Highlander Folk School, famous for its role in the Civil Rights Movement . Horton taught and heavily influenced most of the era's leaders. They included Dr...
and the Highlander Folk School in Tennessee galvanized the shock troops of the Civil Rights Movement
In the Sierra Madre is a memoir and narrative nonfiction history that chronicles the life and times in one of the most famous, yet unknown, regions in the world. Based on his one-year sojourn among the native Raramuri/Tarahumara, Biggers examines the ways of a resilient indigenous culture in the Americas, the exploits of the Mexican mountaineers, and the parade of argonauts and accidental travelers that has journeyed into the Sierra Madre over centuries. From African explorers, Bohemian friars, Confederate and Irish war deserters, French poets, Boer and Russian commandos, hidden Apache and Mennonite communities, bewildered archaeologists, addled writers, and legendary characters like Antonin Artaud
Antonin Artaud
Antoine Marie Joseph Artaud, more well-known as Antonin Artaud was a French playwright, poet, actor and theatre director...
, B. Traven
B. Traven
B. Traven was the pen name of a German novelist, whose real name, nationality, date and place of birth and details of biography are all subject to dispute. A rare certainty is that B...
, Sergei Eisenstein
Sergei Eisenstein
Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein , né Eizenshtein, was a pioneering Soviet Russian film director and film theorist, often considered to be the "Father of Montage"...
, George Patton, Geronimo
Geronimo
Geronimo was a prominent Native American leader of the Chiricahua Apache who fought against Mexico and the United States for their expansion into Apache tribal lands for several decades during the Apache Wars. Allegedly, "Geronimo" was the name given to him during a Mexican incident...
and Pancho Villa
Pancho Villa
José Doroteo Arango Arámbula – better known by his pseudonym Francisco Villa or its hypocorism Pancho Villa – was one of the most prominent Mexican Revolutionary generals....
, Biggers searches for the legendary treasures of the Sierra Madre (Mexico's Copper Canyon). In the Sierra Madre won the Gold Medal in Foreword Magazine's Book of the Year Awards (Travel Essays) in 2006. The memoir was praised by Booklist
Booklist
Booklist is a publication of the American Library Association that provides critical reviews of books and audiovisual materials for all ages. It is geared toward libraries and booksellers and is available in print or online...
as "an astonishing sojourn." The San Antonio Express-News
San Antonio Express-News
The San Antonio Express-News is the daily newspaper of San Antonio, Texas. It is ranked as the third-largest daily newspaper in the state of Texas in terms of circulation, and is one of the leading news sources of South Texas, with offices in Austin, Brownsville, Laredo, and Mexico City...
reviewed that it was "full of historical insights, and unforgettable characters."
Coal, Mountaintop Removal, Strip Mining, and Coal Miners
As an outspoken critic of mountaintop removal in Appalachia and strip mining in the Midwest and American Southwest, Biggers has written extensively for various newspapers, magazines and blogs. He has cited the dual impact of stripmining on destroying both the environment and its inhabitants and their heritage. In an article for Salon.comSalon.com
Salon.com, part of Salon Media Group , often just called Salon, is an online liberal magazine, with content updated each weekday. Salon was founded by David Talbot and launched on November 20, 1995. It was the internet's first online-only commercial publication. The magazine focuses on U.S...
, Biggers has also explored alternatives to coal mining in the coalfield regions, including a proposed industrial wind farm on Coal River Mountain in West Virginia. In several blogs for the Huffington Post, Biggers has appealed to President Barack Obama
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.Born in...
, and Vice President Al Gore
Al Gore
Albert Arnold "Al" Gore, Jr. served as the 45th Vice President of the United States , under President Bill Clinton. He was the Democratic Party's nominee for President in the 2000 U.S. presidential election....
, among others, for their help in bringing green jobs to the Appalachian coal fields.
In the Washington Post, Biggers challenged the concept of "clean coal," by examining the extraordinary human and environmental costs of extracting coal, and the still infeasible technologies available for carbon capture and storage of carbon dioxide emissions at coal-fired plants. As a cultural historian, Biggers often explores the devastating impact of mining on uprooting local communities, cultures and histories.
Biggers is also a playwright, whose first play, "4½ Hours: Across the Stones of Fire," explores the fate of a young couple threatened by an impending mountaintop removal mining operation in their community. Produced by the Coal Free Future Project, a collective of artists, actors, filmmakers and musicians co-founded by Biggers, the play has toured nationally and appears on Off Broadway at the Gene Frankel Theatre in New York City on June 4–13, 2010.
External links
- Official Website
- http://www.coalfreefuture.org
- "From these mountains: The Southern Appalachians and the making of America" Review of The United States of Appalachia by Jon Elliston, 22 February 2006 Mountain Xpress (Vol. 12, Iss. 03). Link confirmed/reference expanded 2010-02-26.
- "Celebrating the History of Appalachia" NPR, May 7, 2006.
freenewmexican.com/news/51243.html "Where Myth is Life"; Free New Mexican newspaper, Santa Fe. Attempt to retrieve article 2010-02-26 unsuccessful. Referred to http://www.santafenewmexican.com and searches by author and title unsuccessful.
- Podcast, Yellowstone Public Radio with Leni Hollman.
In the Sierra Madre interview on NPR's Latino USA
Latino USA
Latino USA is a nationally syndicated public radio program produced by KUT-FM radio in Austin, Texas and distributed nation-wide by National Public Radio . As a radio magazine, the weekly, half-hour radio program focuses on issues of concern to the Latino community while maintaining the technical...
, http://www.latinousa.org/program/lusapgm718.html Attempt to retrieve interview 2010-02-26 unsuccessful. No search capacity at site.
- Jean Feraca interview re: In the Sierra Madre. NPR/Wisconsin Public RadioWisconsin Public RadioWisconsin Public Radio is a network of 32 radio stations in the state of Wisconsin. WPR's network is divided into two distinct analog services, the Ideas Network and the NPR News and Classical Network, as well as the "HD2 Classical Service," a digital-only, full-time classical music service.-Ideas...
's Here on Earth. February 26, 2007. - "As Obama Pushes 'Clean Coal,' Jeff Biggers Tracks History of Destructive Mining in Reckoning at Eagle Creek" Interview with Amy GoodmanAmy GoodmanAmy Goodman is an American progressive broadcast journalist, syndicated columnist, investigative reporter and author. Goodman is the host of Democracy Now!, an independent global news program broadcast daily on radio, television and the internet.-Early life:Goodman was born in Bay Shore, New York...
, Democracy Now, February 26, 2010. Retrieved 2010-02-26.