About

At Messenger Moth Press, our mission is to gather and preserve the lost and the hidden. We love folkways and foodways, true accounts of hard times and perseverance, and the occasional fairy tale darkened by clouds with silver linings.

The past is a foreign country. They do things differently there. —L.P. Hartley

THE MESSENGER MOTH

Drawn to the light from deep within the mysterious dark, moths are associated with secrets, death, and the spirit realm. In some cultures and traditions, moths are believed to carry messages from the dead to the living, such as in Appalachia, where the presence of a white moth indicates that an ancestor is hovering nearby. Moths are the couriers between worlds.

The past is a shadow land. Those who have gone before us have taken countless secrets with them. Their stories must be unearthed, their messages decoded, and their wisdom preserved.

ABOUT THE PUBLISHER

Holly Samson Hall is a lifelong lover of history, the natural world, and rural folkways. A fifth-generation Oklahoman, she has always been drawn to the shadowed corners of America’s past, seeking out the true and often grim histories of the common people that once inhabited this country’s windswept plains and darkened mountain hollows. She and her husband, Jeremy Hall, are the duo behind folk noir musical project Welcome Little Stranger. Holly is the author of The Most Wonderful Wonder: True and Tragic Tales from the Back Roads of American History, finalist for the 2022 Oklahoma Book Award.

  • Holly Samson Hall

  • The Most Wonderful Wonder

  • Welcome Little Stranger

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