SouthTalks: “Country Queers: Lessons from a Decade of Documenting Rural LGBTQIA2S+ Histories”

“Country Queers: Lessons from a Decade of Documenting Rural LGBTQIA2S+ Histories”

presented by Rae Garringer

In 2013, frustrated by the lack of easily accessible rural queer stories, Rae Garringer bought an audio recorder for $200 and started recording oral history interviews with rural queer and trans friends in central Appalachia. They had no formal training in oral history or audio recording, and no idea what they were doing. Since then, the project has grown to include a collection of more than ninety oral histories, a traveling gallery exhibit, a podcast, and a book. In this presentation, Garringer will share photos made along the way, audio excerpts from oral history interviews, and read from their forthcoming book, Country Queers: A Love Letter.

Rae Garringer is a writer, oral historian, and audio producer who grew up on a sheep farm in southeastern West Virginia and now lives a few counties away on S’atsoyaha (Yuchi) and šaawanwaki (Shawnee) lands. They are the founder of Country Queers, a multimedia oral history project and podcast documenting rural and small-town LGBTQIA2S+ experiences since 2013, the author of Country Queers: A Love Letter, and the editor of the forthcoming To Belong Here: A New Generation of Queer, Trans, and Two-Spirit Appalachian Writers. When not working with stories, Rae spends a lot of time failing at keeping goats in fences, swimming in the river, and two-stepping around their trailer.