Just published something heavy on The Ridge and Railing.

It’s about addiction, complicated grief, and what happens when systems leave people behind.

No easy answers. Just truth.

ridgeandrailing.substack.com/p/when-the-system-fails

“Dispatches from the Sacred Grocery” is about finding something sacred in the ordinary, from neon lights and freezer doors to the quiet space between errands.
If it lands, share it.

ridgeandrailing.substack.com/p/dispatches-from-the-sacred-grocery

#writing #Substack #Appalachian #writersofbluesky

New post’s up.
Less grief, more grit.
An Appalachian User’s Manual is for anyone who’s ever taken directions like “turn where the Dollar General burned down.”

Not really a manual, but close enough.

ridgeandrailing.substack.com/p/an-appalac...

Old buildings are not sacred by default, not when their history is buried under hospitality menus and photo ops.

substack.com/profile/3242...

Where I’m from, we don’t call it trauma. We call it Tuesday.

We wear pain like a badge and call it strength, but silence isn’t strength. It’s survival with a cost.

Wrote about what happens when pride keeps us from healing.
Read here: ridgeandrailing.substack.com/p/raised-to-...

I live the advice I give.

Yes, I’m tightening down. Cooking what I’ve already got. Turning my home into the slightly feral sanctuary it was always meant to be.

I’ll be writing and will soon introduce y’all to The Briar Gap Testament; part folklore, part reckoning, part “what the hell was that.”

New Substack: How to Eat When the Empire Chokes Itself

It’s not doomsday. It’s just dinner.

I wrote a practical guide for staying fed when the system spirals—and I recorded it too.

ridgeandrailing.substack.com/p/how-to-eat...

#AppalachianVoice #PreppingWithoutPanic #SubstackAudio #HowWeEatNow

Wrestling hard with the idea of a Christian God, mostly because of American evangelicals. Love thy neighbor has turned into love thy neighbor if they check all the right boxes. The next pope might decide it. If he’s hardline conservative, the faith is lost.

A full note on substack - link in bio.

Respect makes a damn good disguise.
Some folks do harm in plain sight—and we let them.
New from The Ridge & The Railing:
Too Respected to be Suspected
ridgeandrailing.substack.com/p/too-respec...

#EIAWrites #AppalachianGothic #SouthernWriting #BlueskyWriters #SubstackEssay

New on The Ridge and the Railing:
Trump posts an AI image of himself as the Pope. It’s not satire. It’s sacrilege in cosplay form.

🔗 [eiarmstrong.substack.com]

#TrumpPope #ReligiousCosplay #FaithNotFakery #ChristianNationalism #TruthWithTeeth #AppalachianVoices #SubstackWriters #CulturalCritique