Beth Wellington is a Southern Appalachia-based poet and journalist. She writes commentary for The_Guardian and has been active collaborating on a number of journalism social media projects including Spot.us She was a contributing editor for the New River Free Press from 1989 until its demise in 2007 after 24 years [1], a book reviewer for The Roanoke Times and a member of the Southern Appalachian Writers Cooperative (SAWC), the Appalachian Studies Association and the Southern Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition. From 1980 to 1997, she was the founding Executive Director of New River Community Sentencing, Inc. in Christiansburg, Virginia and its predecessor, New River Community Action's Community Sentencing Program. She contributes to both SourceWatch.org and Wikipedia.org. You can find her commentary and book reviews at LLRX.com and her blog on culture and politics, The Writing Corner.