The Mountain Heritage Literary Festival
June 12-14, 2009

Staff

KEYNOTE SPEAKER. Denise Giardina is the author of the modern classics Storming Heaven, The Unquiet Earth, Saints and Villians, and her latest, Emily’s Ghost, among others. Widely considered the mother of the anti-mountaintop removal movement, Giardina also serves as an ordained deacon in the Episcopal Church and teaches at West Virginia University at Charleston. She is a native of Bluefield, West Virginia and lives in Charleston and is truly one of the most important voices in Appalachian—and American—literature.

FEATURED MUSICIAN. The 23 String Band is a five member band that hails from the Cumberland Valley of Eastern Kentucky and weaves in and out of Old-Time, Bluegrass, Acoustic Roots genres and the like. Using banjo, guitar, fiddle, mandolin, and upright bass as the vehicle, the band's energetic style features original compositions as well as forgotten and obscure numbers from times past. This talented, emerging group is one of the most innovative yet traditional on the Appalachian music scene today.

 

 

 

FICTION.  Gwyn Hyman Rubio is the author of the novels Icy Sparks and The Woodsman’s Daughter. Icy Sparks was a selection of Oprah’s book club. Her books and short stories have won various prizes, among them a Pushcart, the Cecil Hackney Literary Award, and others. A native of South Georgia, Rubio has lived in Kentucky for more than twenty years and currently resides in Versailles, where she is at work on a new book. Although Rubio rarely accepts offers to teach at conferences, she brings her rare grace and steady teaching voice to the Mountain Heritage Literary Festival.

 

NONFICTION. Karen Salyer McElmurray is the author of the memoir Surrendered Child: An Appalachian Birth Mother’s Journey, which was a National Book Critics Circle Notable Book and the recipient of the Associated Writing Programs Award for Creative Nonfiction in 2003. She has also published two novels: Strange Birds in the Trees of Heaven and Motel of the Stars. Her work has appeared in such journals and anthologies as The Kenyon Review, The Alaska Quarterly Review, Dirt, Beyond Our Beginnings, and others. She earned her B.A. at Berea College, an M.F.A. at the University of Virginia, and the Ph.D. at the University of Georgia. She teaches at Georgia College and State University, where she also serves as Creative Nonfiction Editor for Arts and Letters. McElmurray is at the forefront of the new generation of Appalachian writers. She was born and raised in Eastern Kentucky.  

 

CHILDREN'S/YOUNG ADULT.  Anne Shelby’s books for children include The Old Man Who Lived in a Hollow Tree, The Adventures of Molly Whuppie, which won a prestigious 2008 Aesop Award, and beloved picture books like Homeplace, We Keep a Store, What to Do About Pollution, and others. Her books have been chosen as American Bookseller Picks of the Lists, School Library Journal Best Books, and a Junior Library Guild Selection. Her work has been anthologized in such books as Bloodroot, Confronting Appalachian Stereotypes: Back Talk from an American Region, Listen Here, and others. Also a respected poet, actress, activist, and essayist, Shelby lives in Eastern Kentucky where she was born and raised, and teaches at Eastern Kentucky University.

POETRY.  Lyrae Van Clief-Stefanon is assistant professor of English at Cornell University. She is the author of the poetry collection Black Swan, winner of the 2001 Cave Canem Poetry Prize, and coauthor, with Elizabeth Alexander, of the chapbook Poems in Conversation and a Conversation. Her poems have appeared in African American Review, Callaloo, Crab Orchard Review, Rattapallax, Shenandoah,and in several anthologies including Bum Rush the Page and Role Call. A powerful new voice on the poetry scene, Van Clief-Stefanon writes of pain, loss, hope, and the promise of salvation

 

SPECIAL GUESTS 

Father Donavan Cain is one of the most respected traditional banjo players in the region.  A graduate of Appalachian State University and General Theological Seminary in New York City, Cain serves as rector at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Paris, Kentucky.  Cain was born and raised in Southeastern Kentucky.   Cain plays a variety of traditional instruments. He has performed and led workshops in traditional mountain music around the eastern United States and In graduate school, Donavan learned to collect and perform coal mining songs, especially those that emerged from the struggles in the Kentucky coalfields in the 1930s. He has alsotaught banjo at CCMMS and has taught singing at Appalshop’s Old Time Music Days for Youth.

 

Jason Howard is the editor of the book We All Live Downstream and author (with Silas House) of Something’s Rising:  Appalachians Fighting Mountaintop Removal.  Howard has written for such publications as Equal Justice Magazine, Paste, Kentucky Living, The Louisville Review, and many others.  He is a graduate of the George Washington University and lives in Eastern Kentucky, where he was born and raised.  Howard is also a respected musician and musicologist. 

James Gifford served for nearly three decades as the executive director of the Jesse Stuart Foundation, where he published more than 100 titles by such authors as Allan Eckert, Billy C. Clark, Harry Caudill, historian Thomas D. Clark, and other chroniclers of Appalachian life and culture, as well as reprints of Stuart’s best books. In keeping with Stuart’s own commitment to education—his years as a classroom teacher were the basis of one of his most famous books, The Thread That Runs So True—the foundation also publishes educational materials and sponsors school and community presentations and events and has emerged as one of the leading publishers of Appalachian literature.

 

 

 

Photographer/Writer Chuck Summers travels extensively throughout the U.S. taking pictures but is best known for his images of Appalachia, as evidenced in such books as Kentucky: Unbridled Spirit and Beauty, A Year in the Cumberland Gap National Park, and A Year in the Big South Fork. His images have been used in various books, calendars, and periodicals.  Recently voted Best Mountain Photographer by readers of Blue Ridge Magazine, Summers is also an ordained minister who lives in Pikeville, Kentucky.

 

 

 

Chad Berry is a recent president of the Appalachian Studies Association and serves as the Goode Professor of Appalachian Studies, associate professor of history, and director of the Appalachian Center at Berea College. He is the editor of The Hayloft Gang: The Story of the National Barn Dance, and author of  Southern Migrants, Northern Exiles.

 

Public Outcry is a group of six writers and musicians committed to fighting mountaintop removal mining.  The members include Silas House, Jason Howard, Jessie Lynne Keltner, Kate Larken, George Ella Lyon, and Anne Shelby.  Public Outcry has performed all over Appalachia and bring a blend of blues, country, hillbilly, and even a bit of reggae to their enlightening, informative, and entertaining performances.

 

DIRECTOR. Silas House is the author of the national bestsellers Clay's Quilt, A Parchment of Leaves, and The Coal Tattoo. House's most recent publications are The Hurting Part and Something's Rising (with coauthor Jason Howard). He lives in his native Eastern Kentucky and serves as writer-in-residence at Lincoln Memorial University and on the fiction faculty of the Spalding University MFA. His fourth novel, Eli the Good, will be released in Fall 2009.

 

DIRECTOR. Denton Loving is the 2007 recipient of the Gurney Norman Prize for Writing. His work has been published in Kudzu, Birmingham Arts Journal and in numerous anthologies. His story A Sorrow of Mothers won the 2008 Alabama Writers Conclave Fiction Prize. He serves as Director of Prospect Research at Lincoln Memorial University and lives in Speedwell, Tennessee.

 

University Advancement
Lincoln Memorial University
Cumberland Gap Parkway
P.O. Box 2005
Harrogate, TN 37752

Phone:
423.869.7072 or 800.325.0900, ext. 7072