Participation Type
Performance
Session Title
"Profits and/or Prophets from the Mountains"
Session Abstract or Summary
Not since the 1960s have we have seen a year as fraught with political, economic and social tensions as 2017. These tensions have propelled Appalachian culture to the forefront of a unique, and too often troubling national dialogue. Promises have been made and unmade in our region about everything from coal to health care to leadership, all in the name of making a greater American. How do we then, as progenitors and protectors of Appalachian culture, meet the challenges dividing our region and our nation? As Elie Wiesel has said, "'Words can sometimes, in moments of grace, attain the quality of deeds.” What words are being written out of our region that have or might attain this "quality of deeds.” Join with this group of four writers—poets, fictionists, essayists, memoirists, all—as they read from their works and speak to how writing continues to be an act of faith.
Presentation #1 Title
Our panel will be a reading by each panelist and discussion with all attendees, afterward
Presentation #1 Abstract or Summary
McElmurray will provide opening remarks, introductions for each reader, and then will read from her own work. She will facilitate questions at the end of the session.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #1
Karen Salyer McElmurray’s Surrendered Child: A Birth Mother’s Journey, was an AWP Award Winner for Creative Nonfiction. Her novels are The Motel of the Stars and Strange Birds in the Tree of Heaven, winner of the Chaffin Award for Appalachian Writing. With poet Adrian Blevins, she has co-edited a collection of essays from Ohio University Press, Walk Till the Dogs Get Mean: Meditations on the Forbidden from Contemporary Appalachia. She teaches at Gettysburg College and at West Virginia Wesleyan’s Low Residency MFA Program.
Presentation #2 Title
Our panel will be a reading by each panelist and discussion with all attendees, afterward
Presentation #2 Abstract or Summary
Bill King will read from his poetry and provide context for those poems within the framework of our discussion about faith and writing.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #2
Bill King’s poetry and creative nonfiction has appeared in Kestrel, Appalachian Heritage, Still: The Journal, The Southern Poetry Anthology, Naugatuck River Review, and many other journals and anthologies. He holds an M.A. in Creative Writing and a Ph.D. in Literature from the University of Georgia and teaches creative writing and literature at Davis & Elkins College in Elkins, WV. His first collection of poetry, The Letting Go, is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press.
Presentation #3 Title
Our panel will be a reading by each panelist and discussion with all attendees, afterward
Presentation #3 Abstract or Summary
Danielle Kelly will read from her fiction and nonfiction and will provide context for those poems within the framework of our discussion about faith and writing.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #3
Danielle Kelly received her MFA in Fiction from West Virginia Wesleyan College in 2015 and currently serves as Instructor of English at West Virginia University at Parkersburg. Her work has appeared in Deep Water Literary Journal and in r.kv.r.y quarterly where her essay "What to do on a Day like This" was nominated for the Pushcart Prize. She is the managing editor and co-fiction editor of HeartWood Literary Magazine, an online literary journal in association with the low-residency MFA program at West Virginia Wesleyan College.
Presentation #4 Title
Our panel will be a reading by each panelist and discussion with all attendees, afterward
Presentation #4 Abstract or Summary
Karen Spears Zacharias will read from her prose and provide context for her work within the framework of our discussion about faith and writing.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #4
Karen Spears Zacharias is a snake-bite survivor, who once saved a chicken. She credits her Aunt Cil for learning her the ways of mountain people and how to cuss properly. She is a recipient of the Weatherford Award of Best in Appalachian fiction. CHRISTIAN BEND is her 8th book.
Our panel will be a reading by each panelist and discussion with all attendees, afterward
McElmurray will provide opening remarks, introductions for each reader, and then will read from her own work. She will facilitate questions at the end of the session.
