The Literary Arts program seeks to promote the work of our local authors, create platforms for publication, provide classes and educational opportunities in creative writing, and empower Appalachian voices to reclaim our regional narratives & tell our unique stories.
Little Town Poets Society is one such program that just celebrated its 1st year anniversary. We offer free meetings on a variety of poetry topics, and, as a group, we have written hundreds of poems! We even created an entire book entitled “Hometown Poems” – featuring the work of over 100 local authors and artists, giving our hometown folks a publication opportunity and the chance to share their work with readers near and far!
There are more publication opportunities and even a group for writers of fiction & nonfiction in the works! We believe writing is for everyone and hope all interested creatives will join us in uplifting local voices!
From little town poet Cheyanne Leonardo comes her first community-based collaborative writing project, Hometown Poems: A South Fork Country Anthology of Poetry.
Featuring poetry and photography from over 100 authors and artists in and around the Big South Fork National River and Recreation Area, this anthology captures a portrait of small-town life in the Appalachian Mountains, created by and for the people who call these woods home.
Each poem and photograph included in Hometown Poems has been carefully placed, piece by piece, to construct an uninterrupted narrative – a poetic reverie comprised of our shared stories of love, loss, beauty, heartache, healing, darkness, and unwavering faith. The result is a wholly original work of art that will preserve our memories, values, and ways of life for generations to come.
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More than anything, this anthology proves that art and spirit are alive in our hills, that each and every one of us has something special to contribute toward the greater project of being human – here, all together, in this mystifying place and time. This symphony of voices echoing together from every nearby holler and hillside reveals that we have something valuable, remarkable, and even magical to offer this world. In other words, our stories matter, and they are ours to tell.
