Category Archives: Events

Writing & Publishing Your Big Idea – Free Workshop!

As part of the Central Appalachian Network’s Big Ideas Festival, I’ll be running a *free* workshop on “Writing & Publishing Your Big Idea.” You can sign up here. There’s lots of other awesome workshops, roundtables, and keynotes too, check em out (Building a Community History Museum!? Quilting & Community Land Trusts?! Dom Flemons on Appalachian Music Appreciation?!). Here’s my workshop description:

Do you have a brilliant book inside you, waiting to be born? A manuscript you’re proud of but don’t know how to sell? A general curiosity about how the publishing industry works? Join me for a crash course on what it takes to write and publish a book, all the way from idea to proposal to manuscript delivery. I’ll speak from the perspective of a writer in the trenches myself, and also as an acquisitions editor who finds and secures new book projects for a publishing house, West Virginia University Press. While there will be a slight emphasis on nonfiction, most of the content of this workshop will be just as relevant for writers of fiction and poetry. The goal here is to demystify the writing and publishing processes so that your Big Idea can find its way onto the page and into the hands of readers. 

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Camp Solidarity

In October, I had the honor of addressing attendees of Camp Solidarity, a union training event hosted by the West Virginia Mine Wars Museum in Matewan, West Virginia. Over the course of the weekend, a series of workshops offered strategies, tactics, and history lessons to local and state level union members and leaders. I spoke to the group about the history of the West Virginia Mine Wars and how this story fits into the broader arc of U.S. labor history, including the present. It was a real joy to be a part of the conversation.

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Lucas Visiting Author

This April I’m stoked to serve as Lucas Visiting Author at Marietta College. I’ll be talking about nonfiction with creative writing classes and giving a public reading on Tuesday, April 7, at 5pm in the Legacy Library. “Heavy Appetizers” are promised. *HEAVY* In case that’s not enough, and I’m not sure why it wouldn’t be, I’ll be reading from my current project, a nonfiction book that examines the history and legacy of the Battle of Blair Mountain. – POSTPONED UNTIL SPRING 2021

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Greensboro Bound

I’m headed to the Greensboro Bound literary festival next week, where the novelist Wiley Cash and myself will talk about contemporary Appalachian voices, the representation and the role of writers/journalists as witnesses, and other fun stuff TBD. Musician Laurelyn Dossett will open. Cash’s novel The Last Ballad, is a fictionalized account of the life of Ella May Wiggins, a North Carolina textile worker who tried to unionize and was murdered in 1929.

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