Crossing Troublesome 25 Years of the Appalachian Writers Workshop

by Leatha Kendrick

Those of us who have been at Hindman during the past twenty five years know that something important has happened there. Something important has happened to many of us individually (as this book attests), and through that one-by-one transformation, something has happened to the region's literature as well. The Appalachian Writers Workshop has nurtured seeds of writing that have flowered far beyond Knott County, beyond Appalachia, beyond what many would classify as "Appalachian literature." Writers, both famous and unknown, have come to Hindman and found sustenance, community, inspiration and instruction.

Albert Stewart prepared the ground for the conference as we know it: Albert Stewart had the vision to see how important it was to center a conference in the heart of the east Kentucky hills. Stewart's return to Knott County and the presence of James Still in Hindman added credibility and substance to the eventual settling of the Appalachian Writers Workshop at the Hindman Settlement School. Mike Mullins took the conference in hand in 1978, soon after taking over as Director of the Settlement School.

Early on, the idea came to us to arrange the book spatially and temporally, so that a reader might feel that he had physically experienced being at this gathering of writers in August. This book is not and was never intended to be an "anthology" of miscellaneous writings, but rather it was conceived to be an evocation, recreation and contextualization of the Appalachian Writers Workshop. Thus, the text moves from the crossing itself, to the heart of the days' classes and meals, then to the evening singing and outward to "Hindman Worldwide." Here you will find personal reminiscences mixed with tributes and vignettes. Along the way, some writers comment on the influence of the Writers Workshop on the body of Appalachian literature and the place of that literature on the world stage.

The effect, we hope, is to document a generation of writing in Appalachia -"generation" here referring as much to the genesis of the writing as it does to the generational group of writers producing it during the past 25 years.
– Leatha Kendrick

204 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2002

About the author

Leatha Kendrick grew up on a southern Kentucky farm, daughter of a veterinarian and a high school home economics teacher. Oldest of four children, she was most at home in fields or barns (when not reading a book on the window seat and looking out at the horizon). Her adult life was spent eastern Kentucky where she and her husband raised three daughters. Kendrick began writing seriously in midlife and found a first community of writers in Appalachia. Her poems, essays, memoir, and book reviews appear in journals including Tar River Poetry, Appalachian Heritage New Madrid Review, the Southern Poetry Review, the James Dickey Review, The Southern Women’s Review – and in many anthologies including The Southern Poetry Anthology, Volume 3—Contemporary Appalachia; Listen Here!: Women Writing in Appalachia; I to I—Life Writing by Kentucky Feminists; and What Comes Down to Us – Twenty-Five Contemporary Kentucky Poets. She is the author of a documentary film, A Lasting Thing for the World – The Photography of Doris Ulmann and also co-edited Crossing Troublesome – Twenty-five Years of the Appalachian Writers Workshop, with George Ella Lyon. Among her writing awards are two Al Smith fellowships from the Kentucky Arts Council, as well as the Sallie Bingham Award and fellowships and grants from the Kentucky Foundation for Women. She currently lives with her husband, Will, and one lively small black dog in Lexington, Kentucky. And Luckier is her fifth collection of poems.

Reviews

[Jenny · Rating 5 out of 5]

I bought this book in 2007, the first year I attended the Appalachian Writers Workshop at the Hindman Settlement School, and had only read bits and pieces of it until now. However, after the recent death of Mike Mullins, the director of the school and the workshop, I felt compelled to read the whole thing. It's a wonderful collection of pieces from the workshop's staff and participants that cover their impressions of and experiences at the workshop from its beginnings until 2002, its 25th anniversary. In particular, I like how the pieces were arranged in the order that the workshop week usually follows, giving the reader the feeling of being there with the writers. It was a nice little armchair week at Hindman for me.

[Melissa Helton · Rating 5 out of 5]

As someone with a deep connection to this workshop and this school, it was wonderful to read these pieces, to see the chapters before I arrived in the workshop's story. For people who haven't been to the workshop but are interested in Appalachian literature, they could enjoy reading this to see what some of our famous writers were like during that era. It does a good job capturing the writing community and spirit of the workshop.