Filed under: 2025 Advent Tree | Tags: advent, advent 2025, book-review, books, creative nonfiction, essays, fiction, Hindman Settlement School, Writing
Time is both shadow and hope.
-Karen Salyer McElmurray, from I Could Name God in Twelve Ways
I am in the middle of Karen McElmurray’s latest book of essays I Could Name God in Twelve Ways and I can’t count the times I have already had to set the book down to catch my breath and get my bearings. Wow, I have thought, this is bedrock, this is what is real. I am reminded of my first reading experience with Virginia Woolf when I was a young woman. I read the first page of To the Lighthouse and had to put my head in my hands to stop the dizziness as an interior world opened up that was far larger than the exterior one. You can do that? I thought, you’re allowed to do that with writing? That’s what Karen does, she opens vast interior worlds. She is one big beating heart, vulnerable and utterly courageous. I am suddenly thinking of the last painting Titian completed as an old man The Flaying of Marsyas, a gruesome and arresting depiction of the satyr Marsyas, who dared to compete with Apollo, being hung upside-down and flayed alive, an otherworldly expression of transcendence on his face. That’s what it is to be an artist and Karen is an artist. The costs are high.
So kind, so very kind, I treasure all the conversations I have had with her at Hindman Settlement School where she has been a teacher and a mentor. Her work is luminous. I’m grateful for all the love she has sent out to the world.
A writer of fiction and creative nonfiction, she has a beautiful website:
https://www.karensalyermcelmurray.com/
Here’s a splendid interview with her (and there are a lot out there) about her latest book: https://www.hippocampusmagazine.com/2024/09/interview-karen-salyer-mcelmurray-author-of-i-could-name-god-in-12-ways-essays/
Learn more about the book here:https://www.kentuckypress.com/9781985900653/i-could-name-god-in-twelve-ways/
Gala is a purply Diamine Ink.
My Advent Tree this year is dedicated to my writer friends and teachers. I am so grateful for all the light you shine in the darkness.
An Apology: I am behind on my Advent tree posts, the last week of school before the holiday break has pretty much done me in, but I aim to catch up in the next few days.
Filed under: 2025 Advent Tree | Tags: advent, advent 2025, Appalachia, Appalachian Writers Workshop, Art of the Day, books, Diamine Ink, Hindman Settlement School, Writing
To make a photo is to preserve a feeling, to love it into a shape that can be carried…
-Amanda Jo Slone from Salvage, an essay in Troublesome Rising
One of the traditions at the Appalachian Writers Workshop that I love is the participant readings in the afternoons where folks read short pieces of their work for everyone assembled. Maybe it’s work that’s never been shared before, maybe it’s the very first time someone has ever shared their work out loud. There is great vulnerability and courage at these readings, and often revelation. For a number of years now, the readings have been facilitated with compassion and expertise by Amanda Jo Slone. Kind, funny and clear, she keeps everyone on track and on time- and let me tell you, that’s not an easy thing to do. She sets everyone at ease and makes it easy for people to take risks.
Amanda Jo is a gifted educator and writer who works to lift all boats through her work at University of Pikeville and her research project The Appalachian Way, which I hope you will check out.
https://sites.google.com/view/theappalachianway/home
The line on the ornament is from an essay she wrote for Troublesome Rising about the work of salvaging artifacts and archives from the 2022 flood in Eastern Kentucky.
My Advent Tree this year is dedicated to my writer friends and teachers. I am so grateful for all the light you shine in the darkness.
An Apology: I am behind on my Advent tree posts, the last week of school before the holiday break has pretty much done me in, but I aim to catch up in the next few days.
Filed under: 2025 Advent Tree | Tags: advent, Art of the Day, Faith, Hindman Settlement School, Hope, Ink, LGBTQ, Writing
My Advent Tree this year is dedicated to my writer friends and teachers. I am so grateful for all the light you shine in the darkness.
In the end, I decided I would never again be the scared boy in my story.
-Jonathan Corcoran
I did not know Jon or his work until I found myself in his creative nonfiction workshop at the Hindman Settlement School in the summer of 2024. His memoir No Son of Mine had just been released. I was nervous about my work that summer- I’d had a horrible year of being sicker longer than I ever experienced. I was exhausted, depressed, my resistance was very low and I just could not get well that year. That week was magical, the first time the sun came out for me in a long time. Jon is a fantastic teacher- kind, insightful and inspiring. He makes everyone feel welcome and listened to, you just want to hang out with him. His one-on-one conference with me was one of the most healing things I’ve experienced. I am profoundly grateful for his encouragement and understand, and his insight into what I might do with my disjointed creative life. His memoir is very powerful, and very important for those who experience the devastating alienation from their families because of their sexual orientation. And it is important for others to come to some understanding of just how devastating that is. His short story collection Rope Swing is a delight. He has just finished a novel that I am looking forward to very much.
https://jonathancorcoranwrites.com/
Filed under: 2025 Advent Tree | Tags: advent, Advent Season, Art of the Day, Faith, Hindman Settlement School, Hope, Ink, poetry, Writing
The year began with nothing but dread and did not disappoint. Each day has brought fresh blows. So much of what I believed about my country and the people in it has been washed away. So many harmed, in danger, belittled and silenced. I have felt hopeless and powerless. In the spring of 2025, my 24 year old daughter suffered a cryptogenic stroke, suddenly unable to feel anything on her entire right side, unable to find words or use them. She and I live alone together. I was able to get her to the ER at 5:30 am on a Monday morning, marking the beginning of many weeks in the hospital followed by months in rehab. She is doing well now, still in recovery, trying to regain what she has lost. Maybe she will. She has come a long way. It has been a challenge keeping my head above water in this constant inundation. Knowing that I am not alone in this does help. It also hurts too.
Reading and writing and making art have been so important this year. My communities have been even more important- my family, friends, the school and church where I work, and my writing community. Lord I am rich in a writing community. Being with them in workshops and retreats, reading their words when I am alone, sharing my words with them for advice- all of this has been a lifeboat for me. This year’s advent calendar is a celebration of them. Each day is a line or two from their work coupled with the ink of the day from the delicious Inkvent calendar I splurged on from Diamine Ink. I make an ornament with these words and hang them on my Advent Tree. I will make a post each day about their work and share where you might find more. I have so many writing friends and acquaintances that I will not be able to highlight them all in one Advent season, which grieves me. All of us are connected through the Hindman Settlement School. It is where we met, where we meet, where we teach each other and share our work. What a blessing.
Advent is my favorite time of year, a time to contemplate the darkness and the returning of the light. It is a hopeful time. Hope is what I need. Gratitude is what I have. Thank you friends for all your work and the light you bring into the world.
December 1 Celestial Skies
The terrible stars sometimes fall,
Annie Woodford
but we are asleep in the valley,
we are asleep in each other’s arms.
These lines are from the poem “Wilkes County Posada” by Annie Woodford. This poem gutted me when I read it last month in her most recent collection “Peasant” published by Pulley Press. It’s an astonishing portrait of what our immigrant neighbors are enduring, people we depend on in so many ways that we are completely ignorant of. People we vilify, imprison and deport without dignity or due process. It is absolutely the perfect beginning to the Advent season. I got the book from her when I saw her at the Appalachian Writers Workshop at Hindman Settlement School this summer. Annie is a poet from North Carolina who is quiet, unassuming and very modest. When you open her books, fierce love leaps off the page and roots you to our earth. I could not put it down. She has an excellent website where you can find out more about her and her work. “Peasant” is my favorite poetry collection of the year so far, and the year is almost over…
https://www.anniewoodfordpoet.com/
https://www.pulleypress.com/peasant
The Fox at Dawn 