When I started this project in 2020, the setting inspired by my hometown of Wheeling, West Virginia was called “Hocking Hills,” a reference to a one-act play I wrote in college called Persona which I set in the very real Hocking Hills, Ohio. As the project grew, both in story and ambition, I realized setting all the stories in a fictionalized version of a real town was pretty confusing, so I changed the name to Everly Heights. The name Everly means “wild boar in woodland clearing,” which I thought worked well along with the Heights part of the name. This town and several of the stories contrast the “Home of the Arts” downtown with the rural population on the outskirts of the city who lost their humble town to artistic advancement.
I launched the original site HockingHillsScripts.com with a few videos outlining the stories I’d written at the time, and I thought it would be fun to share those videos here to show how long I’ve been thinking about this place. For the record, AI came into the project a few years in. At it’s core, Everly Heights (formerly Hocking HIlls Scripts) is about the stories. Have fun taking a look at how I was thinking about things four years back when I started all this.
Hocking Hills Overview
Very Special
The Last Chance Detective Agency
The Koffee Shop
BONUS: Everly Heights Rebrand Video
This is a livestream I did after the rebrand, going over the additional stories and setting up the tech side of things, which has taken about 1.5 years to get right.