Welcome to the Write Across America Virtual Writing Marathon at West Virginia University

Dear Writers,

Welcome to the West Virginia stop of the Write Across America. Since 1971, the song "Take Me Home, Country Roads" by John Denver has become a cultural phenomenon and has been sung across the country. Today we would like to take you on a journey through West Virginia and introduce you to our home.

Here is how we are going to explore:

As you navigate through our website for this evening, you’ll see that we’ve organized according to four different themes prevalent in West Virginia history, identity, culture, and life.

These themes are:

To help us engage with these themes, we have provided for each one some brief informational text with links and references for your further exploration; references to West Virginia writers’ voices through a teaching resource, West Virginia Voices, centered around a project called In Their Own Country, which compiles interviews with 14 West Virginia writers and provides teaching resources, writing prompts, and other tools to explore the voices of West Virginian authors. We have also included songs by West Virginia musicians, either in audio or video form, that speak to each theme.

We will begin our journey together by exploring West Virginia writer Jayne Anne Phillips's sense of place. (Listen to Track Number 20).