A discussion on a nonfiction collection of intimate conversations a young man has with individuals and families who grew up and/or made considerable contributions to Yancey County, a rural mountain community in North Carolina. With weekly stories first published in a small county newspaper, the collection includes 92 first-hand accounts of the struggles and triumphs a group of rural people have experienced over the last 100 years.

          This panel will open and set the stage for the entire festival as authors discuss the relationships between their writing, their heritage, and current issues (e.g., community building, economic development, environmental sustainability, and quality of life). The participants are Robert Conley, Western Band of the Cherokee and Sequoyah Distinguished Professor in Cherokee Studies, Western Carolina University;  Eleanora Tate, awarding winning author from North Carolina Central University; Wayne Winkler, Melungeon historian and author, East Tennessee State University; and Gloria Houston, children and teen author and educator.

For this session, the author recommends that participants read pp. 1-18 and pp. 195-199 of The Brevard Rosenwald School: Black Education and Community Building in a Southern Appalachian Town, 1920-1966.

We often think that character development is most essential, when often finding the right "voice" is equally essential to developing a piece of writing. In this workshop, participants will write one sentence, and then, through a series of experiments, will switch the voice in one dozen ways. This workshop encourages writers to explore many possibilities in finding the best voice for their story. register here 

Arguably, American poetry is still in the somewhat suspect grips of 1950s and '60s confessionalism. Much of the poetry I've seen as a reader, editor and teacher has been solipsistic and uninteresting, what could as easily be a lineated (often badly lineated) version of a poet’s journal. So what? Who cares besides the poet? This workshop will examine ways to remove one's poetry from the realm of the self, ways to write a more socially, politically, or culturally relevant poetry. It will attempt to move a poet from "I" to "eye." register here 

 

A more intimate look at Ms. Tate's books from Missouri to North Carolina, and how her writing techniques could be applied to your own work.

This book chronicals the two presenter's adventures crossing all the hanging footbridges in Yancey and Mitchell Counties.  The book includes maps and photos and additional slides not in the book will be shown.

How do they do it?  Write and take care of young families? What are their routines, goals, and how do they stay motivated.

Writing comics is a unique occupation.  A good comics writer has to think like a novelist and like a movie writer, but the comics writer is a distinctly different animal. This session will focus on what a comics writer does when creating a story for a comic book or a graphic novel, using some examples from Kneece's own work.

Explore the beauty of the natural world through the art of words, illustrations, and drawings with writer George Ellison and artist Elizabeth Ellison.

A poetry reading and discussion by the author of The Serial Killer's Daughter.  The poems in The Serial Killer's Daughter arise from actual and reported events, yet the poems are works of imagination.  Poets are not journalists or historians or even memoir-writers, yet their poems often address other people's lives and public events.  What is the poet's obligation to the facts?  To truth?  To other people?  Why use poetry to address something that has already been written about in prose?

An editor and judge of the anthology Kakalak and author of Something to Read on the Plane reads from his own work.

Editor at Press53, Kevin Watson discusses creative and successful strategies to approach publishing houses with your work.

Discussion of In The Shadows of Chimney Rock, nominated for the 2009 SIBA Book Award by members of the Southern Independent Booksellers' Alliance as The Best in Southern Literature for the Year, as well as Pelican Watch, and Senehi's newest novel, coming out in 2010, Listen to the Wind.

Learn more about this group of reclusive people found in Eastern Tennesee and explore their mysterious tri-racial heritage.

This poignant, moving, and often sweet story centers on two sisters with different dreams — one to live out her life in the valley she treasures, the other to enjoy a life free of self-centered relatives. The news of the damming of their valley throws these dreams into turmoil and leads to revelations and heart-rending decisions. Set against the historical backdrop of the TVA flooding of Butler, Tennessee during WWII, the Parkway Playhouse is proud to present the North Carolina Premiere of this stunning play.

This session will be filled with many poets who have had their poems selected for publication in the Kakalak 2009 anthology.

Editor at Press 53, Watson presents creative and successful strategies for getting your work noticed and published.

In the song and movie Thunder Road it is to “quench the Devil’s thirst,” but some historians tell us that it kept food on the table and clothes on children’s backs during trying times in the Appalachian Mountains. Somewhere in between are fascinating stories of moonshiners turned sports heroes as NASCAR drivers, images of lanky bearded mountaineers shooting it out with “them confounded revenooers,” and historically significant accounts of whiskey making that defy both myth and stereotype. That Good Ole Mountain Dew, a panel, will focus on the many aspects of moonshine whiskey that continues to make it an integral part of the Mountain Mosaic. Dr. Bruce Stewart, History Professor at Appalachian State University; Joseph Dabney, author and storyteller who has written extensively about mountain cooking and spirits; and Robert Thomas, a local former SBI Agent, noted storyteller, and local historian familiar with moonshining in the area will provide humorous and informative insight into a traditional mountain product.

Participants are asked to bring a song they have written and play it (live or via a recording) for the workshop. Please bring 10+ copies of your song lyrics. A CD/Cassette player will be available. Feel free to bring a musical instrument to accompany yourself. We will then as a group offer constructive feedback on both the words and the music to each songwriter. Note: Our discussion will focus on the song, and not the performance. We will try and approach our songs in the spirit of the Grateful Dead’s great song “Ripple”: “If my words did glow with the gold of sunshine / And my tunes were played on a harp unstrung / Would you hear my voice come through the music / Would you hold it near, as it were your own?” 

register here 

For anyone who is in a bookclub, or would like to be, bring your questions, ideas, bookclub stories (remember that book you loved, and everyone else just hated?), and your list of books for a round table discussion of what makes book clubs buzz!

Have you ever noticed that so many enjoyable books and movies with radically different elements feel as though, deep down, they're driven by the same timeless rhythm?  It's because the drama of those books and movies is patterned after a venerable storyteller's mosaic.  Centuries before the Greeks used this mosaic as the basis for their three-act plays, it had been aiding storytellers.  The late Joseph Campbell called it "the Hero's Journey."  In this session, award-winning author Suzanne Adair makes a presentation on the twelve stages of the hero's journey and demonstrates how this mosaic works for three classic movies. Afterwards, don't be surprised if you spot the Hero's Journey in plenty of books and movies!

The editors of the Kakalak read their own work.

For this session, the author recommends that participants read pp. 1-18 and pp. 195-199 of The Brevard Rosenwald School: Black Education and Community Building in a Southern Appalachian Town, 1920-1966.

Award-winning author Suzanne Adair reads from her novels and continues discussion and Q&A from her previous session on The Hero's Journey.

 After years of opinions of editors, reviewers, and critics about her historical fiction, which was not her first choice of genre to write, Houston decided to go to the horses' mouths and ask her audience for input into her first choice: a new fantasy manuscript.  And, by the way, her historical research informs this work in ways she did not expect.

 Karen will share strategies for making any child a book lover. Using comics, graphic novels, and non-fiction, she will show parents tricks to engage even the most reluctant reader.  Karen will also reveal her favorite books, both new and not-so-new, that any child will enjoy.

 This workshop, geared to both beginning and advanced writers, will include specific instruction on how to craft your personal essays or memoir into something others will value, as well as exercises to help you discover your most engaging material. We’ll explore finding your way into your voice, setting scenes as though you’re writing fiction, and turning the people in your life into characters readers care about. I’ll encourage you to have a sense of optimism about your work so that you can keep going even when you know you’re about to step off the edge of the world. I’ll also answer your questions about publishing.  register here 

A poetry reading and discussion by the author of The Serial Killer's Daughter.  The poems in The Serial Killer's Daughter arise from actual and reported events, yet the poems are works of imagination.  Poets are not journalists or historians or even memoir-writers, yet their poems often address other people's lives and public events.  What is the poet's obligation to the facts?  To truth?  To other people?  Why use poetry to address something that has already been written about in prose?

Finding a voice as a  young writer; new Cherokee fiction; writing for children

Karen Miller's new book, Bogeyman 101, needs sharp, clever editors to critique it before it's sent off to the publishers!

Discussion of In The Shadows of Chimney Rock, nominated for the 2009 SIBA Book Award by members of the Southern Independent Booksellers' Alliance as The Best in Southern Literature for the Year, as well as Pelican Watch, and Senehi's newest novel, coming out in 2010, Listen to the Wind.

Explore the beauty of the natural world through the art of words, illustrations, and drawings with writer George Ellison and artist Elizabeth Ellison.

a fictional recollection of a modern-day famine caused by the extinction of the honey bee population. Told from the point of view of a young boy, "The Famine" dramatizes how scarcity of essentials crumbles relationships and challenges morals while rewinding time and testing the survival of rural, suburban, and metropolitan America.

Ann Pancake grew up in Romney and Summersville, WV. Her first novel, Strange As This Weather Has Been (Counterpoint 2007), features a southern West Virginia family devastated by mountaintop removal mining. Based on interviews and real events, the novel was one of Kirkus Review's Top Ten Fiction Books of 2007, won the 2007 Weatherford Award, and was a finalist for the 2008 Orion Book Award.

This poignant, moving, and often sweet story centers on two sisters with different dreams — one to live out her life in the valley she treasures, the other to enjoy a life free of self-centered relatives. The news of the damming of their valley throws these dreams into turmoil and leads to revelations and heart-rending decisions. Set against the historical backdrop of the TVA flooding of Butler, Tennessee during WWII, the Parkway Playhouse is proud to present the North Carolina Premiere of this stunning play.