Appalachian Writers' Resources
Photographer Sabrina L. Greene
Appalachian Mountains
Writing Project
The Appalachian Mountains Writing Project is sponsored by the Appalachian State University Department of English. It is a model of the widely acclaimed National Writing Project, created nearly thirty years ago in order to improve the teaching and learning of writing in all grade levels and disciplines. We are a linked network of K-14 teachers from all subject areas across Western North Carolina. We welcome you to join us!
Email AMWP@appstate.edu or
morancm1@appstate.edu with any questions.
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Visit their website here.
Appalachian Heritage
Writer-in-Residence
The Appalachian Heritage Writer’s Award and Appalachian Heritage Writer-in-Residence Project were developed by the Shepherd University, the Shepherd University Foundation, and the West Virginia Humanities Council in 1998 to celebrate and honor the work of a distinguished contemporary Appalachian writer. The literary residency was designed to function in concert with the Appalachian Heritage Festival, an annual celebration of Appalachian artistic and cultural traditions.
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Visit their website here.
Still: The Journal
Our mission is to provide a free website that offers excellent contemporary literary writing. Our emphasis is on the literature of the Appalachian region, and we are committed to publishing quality writing that does not rely on clichés and stereotypes. We want to feature writing that exemplifies the many layers and complexities of the region. We also feature writers with connections to the region. Still: The Journal has been publishing established and emerging writers, musicians, and visual artists since 2009.
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Visit the website here.
Voices of West Virginia:
West Virginia has produced a first-rate collection of creative writers, including Denise Giardina, Mary Lee Settle, Breece Pancake, Cynthia Rylant, Davis Grubb, Irene McKinney, Marc Harshman, Sandra Belton, and scores of others. Voices of West Virginia, launched in January 2024, brings together 14 of the state’s most celebrated writers. The teacher-friendly web site includes an hour-long audio conversation with each writer.
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The conversations feature moving readings, advice to writers, stories about growing up in West Virginia and reflections on Appalachia and the practice of writing. Visitors can download a complete transcript of each conversation, browse through multiple pages of classroom/reading group activities, and choose from hundreds of writing exercises coordinated with the conversations. Teachers can even find a handy, pre-selected list of curriculum objectives to go with each writer.
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There is something for every age on Voices of West Virginia, from K-2 through adults. “This was a labor of love by a dedicated group of West Virginians who are tired of the widespread assumption that real writers don’t come from West Virginia,” said director Kate Long.
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The site – and accompanying social media – were funded by the West Virginia Humanities Council on the condition that Voices be made available to all without charge. The project’s advisory board is partnering with Marshall University Libraries and the June Harless Center to expand the number of writers included and seek funding for regranting.
See the Voices of West Virginia Facebook page for more classroom-friendly material.
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Visit the website here.
Anthology of Appalachian Writers
The Anthology of Appalachian Writers is a publication that encourages a long-established tradition of storytelling, love of language, and creative expression associated broadly with the region of Appalachia. Though the principal mission of the anthology is to provide a venue for publication of new writers, it also provides a collection of literature, photography, and scholarship that contributes to an understanding and appreciation for the region and features many of the premier writers of the region. For consideration and inclusion in the anthology, all fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, essay, and photographic submissions should relate in some respect to the work of current Appalachian Heritage Writer in Residence. For information please see the Appalachian Heritage Writer-in-Residence website.
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Visit their website here.
Appalachian Heritage
Writer’s Award
Sponsored by the West Virginia Humanites Council, the Appalachian Heritage Writer’s Award was established to promote and encourage a literature rich in cultural significance and tradition.
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Stretching from the hills of Georgia and Alabama to Quebec Province and under the sea to the highlands of Scotland, the series of mountains referred to in North America as the “Appalachian Chain” have produced cultural and language traditions that have remained distinct in a world rapidly moving toward homogeneity. The music and story traditions that tie the hills of Gaelic Scotland and Ireland to Appalachia have, in large part, remained intact, and the cultural heritage on this side of the Atlantic has grown to encompass indigenous Native and African American strains that have mingled with the Scotch/Irish. The mixture is both unique and unusually rich in oral tradition and a love of language and storytelling.
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Shepherd University is proud to honor those literary artists who have found sustenance and material from this heritage. The Appalachian Heritage Writer’s Award and the $5000 accompanying prize are presented annually to a writer whose work features or draws upon, in some respect, this cultural heritage. The recipient of the award fulfills a brief residency each fall, enriching the campus and community with lectures, workshops, and special programs as part of The Appalachian Heritage Writer-in-Residence Project, a West Virginia Humanities Council sponsored program. The Appalachian Heritage Writer-in-Residence also selects winners of the West Virginia Young Writers Fiction Competition, interacting with these young writers before and during the residency to encourage the continuation of storytelling traditions in the region. The residency is associated with the Appalachian Heritage Festival, held each fall in Shepherdstown, West Virginia and developed by the Performing Arts Series at Shepherd.
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Visit their website here.
Red Branch Review
The Red Branch Review is a 501(c)(3) literary and visual art annual based in Knoxville, Tennessee. Our editors seek to bring to readers the kaleidoscope of human experience. The Review was founded in response to the increasing liminality of the Appalachian experience. Our mission is to bring artistic and literary voices that express these tensions and evoke a sense of place into conversation with one another. Red Branch recognizes and celebrates the heterogeneity of Appalachia and its diaspora. The editors welcome contributors and readers to bring their individual voices and perspectives to the Review.
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Visit their website here.
WOMEN OF
APPALACHIA PROJECT
If you are from Appalachia, you grow to realize early on, that many people have an image of an Appalachian woman, and they look down on her.
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The Women of Appalachia Project was created to address discrimination directed at women from the Appalachian region by encouraging participation from women artists of diverse backgrounds, ages and experiences to come together, to embrace the stereotype, to show the whole woman; beyond the superficial factors that people use to judge her.
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Working together, women united, we:
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Seek out venues where women's issues can be examined, addressed, dissected, embellished, and safely shared with audiences and each other through presentations of visual and spoken word art.
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Empower and strengthen Appalachian visual, literary and performing women artists through fellowship and positive community connections.
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Provide opportunities for a diverse group of woman to share their art, receive recognition and encouragement, and build strong networks so they continue to thrive, while introducing diverse populations to one of Appalachian's greatest assets, its artists.
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We believe in the strength of community.
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Visit their website here.