Filed under: 2025 Advent Tree | Tags: advent 2025, Appalachia, Appalachian Writers Workshop, Hindman Settlement School, poetry, Untelling Magazine, Women Farmers, Writing
driving down those narrow country roads
is a bad idea.
-Amy Le Ann Richardson, from Don’t Look Back a poem in the Summer 2024 issue of Untelling
Amy Le Ann Richardson is another one of those do-gooders the world is lucky to have. She seems to be everywhere all at once, full of ideas that she is busy putting into motion. She is a writer, a farmer, a visual artist and an advocate for small farmers and the environment, all while raising her young family. One of the cool things she has been up to is hosting writing workshops for mountain women farmers and gardeners through a grant from the Kentucky Foundation for Women to honor and preserve their stories. I’ve spent many hours with her on the porches of Hindman Settlement School in wide-ranging conversations, the kind of talk that spins worlds into being. She doesn’t know this, but I keep the little maple leaf bottle of syrup from her farm she gave me a couple of years ago on my meditation altar. It is there to remind me of the sweetness of friendship.
Find out more about her books and her work here:
https://readappalachia.substack.com/p/ep-36-poetry-corner-amy-le-ann-richardson
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: Addiction recovery, advent 2025, Appalachia, Art of the Day, Big Pharma, books, Hindman Settlement School, Independent bookstores, The Flood, Writing
I’ve been a soup bean connoisseur my whole life, and I know a Luck’s bean when I taste one.
-Mandi Fugate Sheffel from The Nature of Pain
Mandi Fugate Sheffel’s nickname has become “The Appalachian Treasure” and all I can say is that it isn’t bragging if it’s true. For someone who hates the spotlight, she’s had to spend a lot of the last few years squirming in it from all the do-gooding she’s been up to- flood recovery, opening a gorgeous independent bookstore in Hazard, working with the Foundation of Appalachian Kentucky and the Appalachian Arts Alliance. That spotlight only got brighter this fall when her stunning memoir The Nature of Pain was published. I’d gotten to hear and read parts of it as it was developing, but I wasn’t prepared for how powerful it would be as a whole book. I am in awe of the courage it must have taken to write this memoir of personal and regional addiction at the height of the opioid crisis in Eastern Kentucky, ground zero for the aggressive marketing of Oxycontin. Good lord, your blood will boil reading what Purdue Pharma did to a region already victim to various extractive industries. Mandi began writing pieces of her book at Hindman Settlement School as a way to manage the grief of losing her beloved cousin whose life was destroyed by addiction. We all have addiction stories- our own or those of people we love. This book is a gut punch, but it is also full of hope and the possibility of redemption. I hope you will read it.
Mandi got the news that her book was accepted for publication by University of Kentucky Press the morning of July 27th 2022 when we were at the Appalachian Writers Workshop at Hindman. I remember how very happy she was, how very happy and celebratory we all were. What a glorious day and evening that was! But that night all the rain that ever was came pouring out of the mountains and all the creeks and rivers in multiple counties rose over 20 feet in just a couples of hours killing 45 people and destroying countless homes, schools, libraries, churches and businesses. This link will take you to a short piece Mandi wrote that manages to hold worlds of stories about it: https://hindman.org/fireside/titles/troublesome-rising/troublesome-rising-digital-anthology/reflections-mandi-fugate-sheffel/
If you want to buy her book, and I think you should, you really ought to buy it from her own bookstore. It’ll benefit independent bookstores everywhere:https://www.readspottednewt.com/
Brrr! is a sparkly blue Diamine Ink that’s perfect for this snow day home from school.
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.
Filed under: 2025 Advent Tree, Uncategorized | Tags: advent 2025, Appalachia, Art of the Day, Diamine Ink, Hindman Settlement School, Inkvent Calendar, Robert Gipe, Writing
Surely the boy that would love them puppies and kittens was still in there somewhere. If only I hadn’t killed him with the good skillet.
- Robert Gipe from Pop
Every time I read or listen to a Jack Tale, I only picture Jack one way- as Robert Gipe. Writer, teacher, artist, activist, organizer, theater maker, Robert has spent his life speaking truth to power. The way he tells it, Truth sneaks in the back door or cracked window in the form of a joke, a story, a drawing, a play. It catches you up in it until the disguise is thrown off and you cannot deny the vision of what he is fighting for- respect, dignity and safety for the people of Appalachia. He gives voice to the voiceless.
At Hindman, Robert is Master of the Introduction, King of the Porch, the voice of the Brier in the annual reading of Jim Wayne Miller’s Brier Sermon, and Inventor of the Grippo’s Salad. He is a friend to all, the one you want beside you in a fight. I am honored to know him.
This line is from the third of his trilogy of illustrated novels: Trampoline, Weedeater & Pop. Read them. Really, just do it.
His website is excellent for all things RG:
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.
The Fox at Dawn 