Participation Type
Panel
Session Title
From within the Community: Intergenerational Friendships Between Appalachian Writers
Session Abstract or Summary
Four writers from the West Virginia Wesleyan College low-residency MFA will discuss community both in their region and in the writing program they have come to call home. Community has always been a pillar of Appalachian culture, evident in a child’s first canning season and in the wisdom a Granny witch lends her neighbors. Writers also seek community via the sustainable support, mentorship, and friendship of their MFA programs. These four alumni and faculty of WVWC will read short pieces of their work—poetry, fiction, and nonfiction—and discuss how that work has been cultivated both by the communities of their Appalachian heritage and via their writing peers. During the last 15 minutes, the writers will engage one another and the audience in conversation about the impact of community support on their work.
Presentation #1 Title
From within the Community: Intergenerational Friendships Between Appalachian Writers
Presentation #1 Abstract or Summary
Four writers from different regions of Appalachia will discuss community both in their region and in the writing program they have come to call home. Community has always been a pillar of Appalachian culture, and the passing of knowledge from one generation to the next through friendship is just as important for writers as it is for farmers. These four alumni and faculty of WVWC will explore the ways in which writers seek community throughout their regions, read short pieces of their work—poetry, fiction, and nonfiction—and discuss how that work has been cultivated both by the communities of their Appalachian region and via their writing peers. During the last 15 minutes, the writers will engage one another and the audience in conversation about the impact of community support on their work.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #1
Amber Milstead finished her MFA at West Virginia Wesleyan's low-residency MFA program in January 2019. She is the 2017 winner of the Pearl S. Buck writing contest and is currently working on her first novel.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #2
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, Editor’s Pick by Oxford American, 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.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #3
Velicia Jerus Darquenne is a West Virginia who earned her BA in English from Fairmont State University and MFA in Creative Writing Fiction from West Virginia Wesleyan College. She is the media editor for Kestrel, a literary journal in WV, and her work has appeared in Crack the Spine and Saw Palm.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #4
Larry D. Thacker is the author of Mountain Mysteries: The Mystic Traditions of Appalachia (Overmountain Press) the poetry chapbooks, Voice Hunting and Memory Train (Finishing Line Press) and the full collection Drifting in Awe (2017 Finishing Line Press), as well as the forthcoming full collections Feasts of Evasion (Future Cycle Press) and Grave Robber Confessional (Main Street Rag Publishing). He is a veteran of the US Army and seventh generation native of the Cumberland Gap area. His MFA in poetry and fiction is from West Virginia Wesleyan College. He is also a 15-year veteran of the student services field in higher education with multiple professional degrees.
From within the Community: Intergenerational Friendships Between Appalachian Writers
Four writers from different regions of Appalachia will discuss community both in their region and in the writing program they have come to call home. Community has always been a pillar of Appalachian culture, and the passing of knowledge from one generation to the next through friendship is just as important for writers as it is for farmers. These four alumni and faculty of WVWC will explore the ways in which writers seek community throughout their regions, read short pieces of their work—poetry, fiction, and nonfiction—and discuss how that work has been cultivated both by the communities of their Appalachian region and via their writing peers. During the last 15 minutes, the writers will engage one another and the audience in conversation about the impact of community support on their work.
