Participation Type
Panel
Session Title
AGAINST TELLABILITY: PRACTITIONERS & TEACHERS OF CREATIVE WRITING WRESTLE WITH APPALACHIAN IDENTITY
Session Abstract or Summary
In Sara Webb-Sunderhaus’s wonderful essay “‘Keep the Appalachian, Drop the Redneck,’” she builds her argument around what folklorist Ann K. Ferrell calls “tellable narratives”—“public discourses that ‘reflec[t] common, but often unquestioned, ideas and assumptions’” about a given topic. Webb-Sunderhaus studies the tellable narratives of Appalachia, for instance, stories in which “Appalachians are usually long-suffering victims of poverty, illiteracy, and violence who survive through a combination of pluck and down-home wisdom.” Stories that are the expected stories of our region, satisfying the reader’s preconceptions and often fetishizing authenticity. These four creative writers who identify as Appalachian and also teach in WV, KY, and NC colleges and universities will share original prose and poetry which they consider to be both a genuine reflection of their 21st-century Appalachian identities and also an act of resistance against the strictures of tellability. Since these practitioners are also teachers, each writer will offer attendees one writing exercise that has either fostered his/her own writing or has proved useful in fostering honest, layered writing from their students in the region. The writers hope to engage one another and members of the audience in fruitful discussion about how to render Appalachian identity and self-knowledge on the page while challenging the pressures of tellability—whether those pressures come from the publishing industry or from a writer’s own internalized narratives—that can stifle creative process and confine writers (and students of writing) to a prison of preconceptions.
Presentation #1 Title
Original creative work by author
Presentation #1 Abstract or Summary
Reading from author's own creative work and an offering of a writing exercise to share with attendees.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #1
Jessie van Eerden is author of two novels, Glorybound and My Radio Radio, and the essay collection The Long Weeping. Her work has appeared in Best American Spiritual Writing, Oxford American, Willow Springs, Gulf Coast, and other magazines and anthologies. Jessie directs the low-residency MFA program at West Virginia Wesleyan College.
Presentation #2 Title
Original creative work by author
Presentation #2 Abstract or Summary
Reading from author's own creative work and an offering of a writing exercise to share with attendees.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #2
Jeremy B. Jones is the author of Bearwallow: A Personal History of a Mountain Homeland, which was named the 2014 Appalachian Book of the Year in nonfiction and awarded gold in the 2015 Independent Publisher Book Awards in memoir. His essays appear in Oxford American, Brevity, The Iowa Review, and elsewhere. An associate professor of English at Western Carolina University, Jeremy also co-edits the book series In Place from Vandalia Press.
Presentation #3 Title
Original creative work by author
Presentation #3 Abstract or Summary
Reading from author's own creative work and an offering of a writing exercise to share with attendees.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #3
Doug Van Gundy teaches in both the BA and MFA writing programs at West Virginia poems, essays and reviews have appeared in many journals, including The Oxford American, Ecotone, Appalachian Heritage, and Poetry Salzburg Review. His first collection of poems, A Life Above Water is published by Red Hen Press. He is co-editor of the anthology Eyes Glowing at the Edge of the Woods: Contemporary Writing from West Virginia.
Presentation #4 Title
Original creative work by author
Presentation #4 Abstract or Summary
Reading from author's own creative work and an offering of a writing exercise to share with attendees.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #4
Amanda Jo Slone is the editor of the literary journal, The Pikeville Review. Her work has appeared in journals such as Appalachian Heritage, The Louisville Review, Still: The Journal, Kudzu, Pine Mountain Sand & Gravel, as well as the anthology Seeking Its Own Level. In 2013 she was awarded an Emerging Artist Award from the Kentucky Foundation for Women. She lives in Draffin, Kentucky.
Original creative work by author
Reading from author's own creative work and an offering of a writing exercise to share with attendees.
