Tag: Appalachian Heritage Writer-in-Residence

How Writing, Faith and Landscape Guided Author Karen Spears Zacharias Home to Appalachia

The 2018 Appalachian Heritage Writer-in-Residence at Shepherd University is Karen Spears Zacharias. Zacharias grew up in a military family but spent most of her childhood in the hills of Appalachia.

During the Vietnam War, her father was killed in action, and his death left a major impact on Zacharias’ life and the lives of her mother and siblings.

Writing and faith helped her process the struggles of her youth, and it also gave her a pathway to remain connected to her Appalachian roots.

Zacharias later became a journalist, a nonfiction writer and novelist.

She graduated high school in Georgia, attended Berry College for a short time, and then followed her family out west to Oregon where she still lives today with her husband, Timothy. They have four children.

Zacharias earned a B.A. degree in Communications and Education from Oregon State University.

Her novel Mother of Rain is a Weatherford Award winner and was adapted for the stage by Paul Pierce.

Mother of Rain has been chosen as this year’s One Book, One West Virginia Common Reading selection.

LISTEN: Author Wiley Cash on Novel 'The Last Ballad'

Author Wiley Cash is the 2017 Appalachian Heritage Writer-in-Residence at Shepherd University. His newest novel The Last Ballad will be released October 3. Cash sat down with reporter Liz McCormick to discuss his latest work, which centers on union leader and balladeer Ella May Wiggins, who died during the Loray Mill Strike in Gastonia, North Carolina in 1929.

Cash received this year’s Appalachian Heritage Writer’s Award, which is presented by the West Virginia Center for the book and Shepherd University.

Cash’s first novel A Land More Kind Than Home, published in 2012, was chosen as the 2017 ‘One Book, One West Virginia’s Common Read for the State’ by the Center for the Book. Cash is also author of This Dark Road to Mercy, published in 2014.

Cash was born September 7, 1977, in Fayetteville, North Carolina. He holds a B.A. degree from the University of North Carolina, Asheville, an M.A. from the University of North Carolina, Greensboro, and a Ph.D. from the University of Louisiana, Lafayette.

He is a teacher in the Mountainview Low-Residency MFA Program in Creative Writing at Southern New Hampshire University, and he currently serves as writer-in-residence at the University of North Carolina, Asheville.

Cash lives with his wife and two young daughters in Wilmington, North Carolina.

LISTEN: Author Charles Frazier Speaks on Women in Appalachia & Cold Mountain

Award-winning author Charles Frazier is 2016’s Appalachian Heritage Writer-in-Residence at Shepherd University. Frazier was born in Asheville, North Carolina and spent time as a teacher before he published his first novel, Cold Mountain, in 1997.

The novel is based on his great-great uncle; a wounded confederate soldier who deserted to journey back home to his loved ones. Cold Mountain would go on to win the National Book Award for Fiction, top the New York Times Best Seller list, and be turned into an award-winning feature film in 2003.

The Appalachian Heritage Writer’s Award and the Appalachian Heritage Writer-in-Residence Project were developed by 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.

To encourage aspiring West Virginia writers and to promote the kind of networking that fosters literary achievement Shepherd University and the West Virginia Center for the Book developed, in fall 2001, the West Virginia Fiction Competition.

Frazier is the 18th recipient of the Appalachian Heritage Writer’s Award.

Poet Nikki Giovanni Says W.Va. Should Be Celebrated

Poet and activist Nikki Giovanni  loves several things about Appalachia: its defense of freedom, and how the people here know when enough is enough in regards to material wealth.

Giovanni was the Writer-in-Residence for Shepherd University’s 2015 Appalachian Heritage Festival.

Giovanni was born in Knoxville, Tennessee on June 7, 1943, but spent most of her early years in Cincinnati, Ohio. In 1958, she moved back to Knoxville, where she lived with her grandparents.

She would later go on to receive her undergraduate degree from Fisk University in Nashville and attend graduate school at the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia University.

While growing up, Giovanni experienced segregation and became active in the Civil Rights Movement, which influenced much of her work.

Today, Giovanni lives in Virginia and is a professor at Virginia Tech.

Shepherd University’s Appalachian Heritage Writer-in-Residence is sponsored by the West Virginia Humanities Council and Shepherd’s Appalachian Studies Program.

Shepherd's 20th Annual Appalachian Heritage Festival Hosts Poet Nikki Giovanni

This week Shepherd University is hosting the 20th Annual Appalachian Heritage Festival. Many of the planned festivities surround the 17th Annual Appalachian Heritage Writer-in-Residence.

Shepherd’s Appalachian Heritage Festival began back in 1995, and now twenty years later, it’s still going strong. The festival first started as a way to combat some of the negative stereotypes about West Virginia and Appalachian culture.

This year’s 17th Annual Appalachian Heritage Writer-in-Residence is Nikki Giovanni, a renowned American poet from Knoxville, Tennessee who’s known for her activism in Civil Rights.

There will be many events throughout the remainder of the week, including concerts this weekend with a community gospel sing, a banjo workshop, an old-time string band competition, and more.

Poet Nikki Giovanni will be hosting free lectures and poetry readings throughout the week.

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