August Feature
Meet Our Authors: Marianne Worthington grew up in Knoxville, Tennessee, and moved to southeastern Kentucky in 1990 where she works as a teacher, editor & writer. In 2009 she co-founded Still: The Journal, an online literary magazine publishing writers, artists, and musicians with ties to the Appalachian region. She received the Al Smith Fellowship from the Kentucky Arts Council and the Appalachian Book of the Year Award for her poetry chapbook, Larger Bodies Than Mine. She was awarded grants from the Kentucky Foundation for Women and the Appalachian Sound Archives Fellowship at Berea College. With Silas House she co-edited Piano in a Sycamore: Writing Lessons from the Appalachian Writers’ Workshop, a craft anthology from teachers at the Appalachian Writers’ Workshop from the last 40 years. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Oxford American, CALYX, Grist, Reckon Review, Cheap Pop, Appalachian Review, Feed, Ethel, and Chapter 16 among other places. She teaches communication studies and media writing to college students. She often teaches poetry and nonfiction writing classes for workshops and conferences. University Press of Kentucky published her poetry collection, The Girl Singer, in late 2021. Find out more on her website: https://marianneworthington.com/ Belle Townsend is a rural Kentucky born and bred writer, poet, researcher, organizer, baker, cat mama, and quadruple cancer. She writes with reverence, humor, warmth, lots o’ love, and southern charm in order to share stories in a way that is accessible in an era with ever-decreasing attention spans. Belle's first two poetry collections, "Push and Pull" and "The Observer Effect", are both vulnerable reckonings of identity in the context of the collective, of rural life, of struggle, of construct, of the COVID-19 pandemic, of queerness, and of girlhood. Townsend's third and newest poetry collection, "The Holy in the Humdrum" is a tribute to rural lineage and country women, a love letter to Kentucky, a reckoning of home, and an intimate unpacking of self. Find out more about Backwoods Literary Press here: https://www.backwoodsliterarypress.com/
Hill Writers Collective
Hill Writers Collective is a writing collective and online reading series dedicated to uplifting Appalachian and Southern voices. Through a mix of in-person gatherings and virtual events, we create space for everyday writers to explore creative expression in a supportive, low-stakes environment. Our online series primarily features the work of southeastern Appalachian authors. However, our reading series has expanded into other southern regions, with viewers from all across the nation. The program includes author reading, followed by engaging conversations on craft and the writing life. Each session incorporates generative writing prompts led by the featured authors and concludes with an open mic where participants are invited to share new work. With a growing Facebook community of over 300 members, Hill Writers Collective is a place for much more than free writing prompts and timely publishing opportunities, we're building a strong collective for the voices of our communities. Our mission is to amplify contemporary Southern and Appalachian perspectives, foster creative connection, and cultivate an inclusive literacy across the region and beyond.
