Virginia’s sixth congressional district has been in Republican hands for over 33 years, but Beth Macy, a longtime reporter with the Roanoke Times and author of Dopesick, a powerful account of the opioid crisis that swept through Appalachia two decades ago, has a plan to change that.
The plan, drawing on her experience as a reporter, is to canvass the district in the mountainous west of the state, knocking on doors, going to food pantries, meeting with veterans. It’s what any political hopeful might do, but with a twist: Macy carries her reporter’s notebook and jots down the good stories she’s been told.
