The Storied Song is here!

Can we sing you a story?

Today, Appalachia Book Company releases The Storied Song — four original radio plays, each one built from a ballad that came out of these mountains. Tom Dula. The Wreck of the Old 97. The Farmer’s Curst Wife. Lord Bateman. Stories that have been sung, passed down, and reshaped by every voice that’s carried them.

We asked four Appalachian playwrights to take those ballads apart and put them back together as something new. What they made is funny, heartbreaking, and unmistakably from here.

The people behind The Storied Song are worth knowing. The plays were directed by Michael McNulty and performed by a cast of writers and actors whose roots run deep in this region. William Ritter sings the ballads that thread each episode together. Before you listen — or after — we’d love for you to spend a few minutes with the voices that made this possible.

[Meet the cast and creative team →]

All four episodes are available now on Spotify. You can listen in any order, but we think you’ll want to hear them all.

Thank you for being part of what makes this work possible.