10am - 10:45am: Jane Ann Fuller and Deni Naffziger

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We so often perceive writing to be a solitary activity, but writers are often inspired by what they read, what they hear, and what they experience in the world. In other words, writing rarely takes place in a vacuum. This collaborative workshop will aid writers as they generate ideas and, just as important, concrete details and images necessary for writing strong poems through focused conversation with another person. Participants can expect to meet and interview a workshop partner in order to mine stories, images, and details that will help them write a poem, which they may choose to share at the end of the session.

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Bios: Deni Naffziger is the author of two full-length collections of poetry, Desire To Stay (Stockport Flats Press, 2014) and Strange Bodies (Shadelandhouse Modern Press, 2023), A Story of Flying (a children's coloring tale supported by the Ohio Arts Council, 2006, translated into Spanish in 2010), and 3 chapbooks. She co-authored Revenants: A Story of Many Lives with poet Jane Ann Fuller, which was awarded a special projects grant by the Ohio Arts Council. Naffziger is a Weatherford Award and Pushcart Prize nominee and was a finalist for the 2024 Eric Hoffer Medal Provocateur Award. She directed the Writers' Collaborative at Passion Works Studio in Athens, Ohio, for 25 years where she also served as Poet-In-Residence (2023-2024). Her work has appeared in journals including New Ohio Review, Atticus Review, Pine Mountain Sand & Gravel, Spoon River Review, Sheila-Na-Gig, West Branch, Main Street Rag, Pikeville Review, YARN, Pudding Magazine, Asylum, The MacGuffin, and Northern Appalachian Review.

Jane Ann Devol Fuller earned an MFA from the University of Iowa Writer’s Workshop and taught English at Hocking College for over 30 years where she also helped edit Riverwind literary journal with Deni Naffziger. They also collaborated on Revenants: A Story of Many Lives, published with a grant from the Ohio Arts Council. Fuller’s Half-Life (Sheila-Na-Gig Editions, 2021), was a finalist for the National Indie Excellence Awards. A recipient of the James Boatwright III Poetry Prize, her work appears in numerous journals including Aethlon, Anti-Heroin Chic, Atticus Review, Autumn Sky, Blue Earth Review, BODY, Calyx, Denver Quarterly, Ekphrastic Review, Eunioa Review (forthcoming), Fifth Wednesday, Grist, JMWW, Kamana, Main Street Rag, Northern Appalachia Review, One Art, On the Seawall, Persimmon Tree, Pine Mountain Sand and Gravel, Pudding Magazine, Rise Up Review, RockPaperPoem, Sheila-Na-Gig Online, Shenandoah, Silver Birch Press, Steinbeck Now, Still: the Journal, Sugar House Review, SWWIM, The American Journal of Poetry, The MacGuffin, The Pikeville Review, Triggerfish Critical Review (forthcoming), Verse Daily, and Waccamaw.. Anthology credits include All We Know of Pleasure:Poetic Erotica by Women; I Thought I heard a Cardinal Sing; Women Speak, and The Center for Victims of Torture’s Project Hope. Fuller had the honor of writing the foreword to New Beginnings, Logan Hocking School District’s first literary anthology, and teaching summer workshops for the school district to middle school students.​

11am - 11:45am: Michael Perry [Professional Storyteller]

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So much of our time and energy is spent preparing our stories. But how well do you prepare your mind and body before stepping on stage? ‘Everything But Story’ explores and implements tools and tricks meant to focus on preparation and stage presentation. This workshop can be beneficial to storytellers of all experience levels. By presenting in an ‘I do - we do’ fashion, participants are able to practice each step, offering ‘controls’ for breathing, timing and ‘audience climate’ reading.

Bio: As a lifelong learner with an M.S.Ed. from Duquesne University, Mike’s broad and adventurous career experience has taken him from the circus to the Census Bureau, from major motion pictures to maintenance man. He has taught Elementary School, and performed as a corporate edu-tainer.

12pm - 12:45pm: Brian Koscho [Founder of Invisible Ground]

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Brian Koscho will discuss the multimedia project Invisible Ground, focusing on public history in southeast Ohio communities and beyond and how that process can engage communities in their own stories. Learn about Invisible Ground's work in podcasting and augmented reality Immersive Historic Markers and how media and storytelling can bring history to life and engage communities.

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Bio: Brian Koscho is a media artist living in Athens, Ohio. He is the director and founder of Invisible Ground, a project centered on place-based storytelling in local history using a podcast and a series of augmented reality Immersive Historic Markers. Koscho completed his MFA in Communication Media Arts at Ohio University in April 2022. Along with his work in media, Brian is an adjunct instructor at Ohio University in the Scripps College of Communication, teaching podcasting at the School of Media Arts & Studies. Out in the community, he has taught Community Storytelling, Audio Storytelling, and Podcasting and helped with workshops on Documentary Film and Storytelling for high school students in Appalachian, Ohio. Koscho has produced multimedia work and collaborated in various forms with Stuart’s Opera House (where he worked from 2007-2019) and its Nelsonville Music Festival, Inside Appalachia, West Virginia Public Broadcasting, POV, WOUB Public Media, Mid Atlantic Arts, Foundation for Appalachian Ohio, Ohio History Connection, Ohio Arts Council, COAD, Mount Zion Baptist Church Preservation Society, the Southeast Ohio History Center, and many more organizations.

1pm - 1:45pm: Dr. Chea Parton (Reading Rural YAL) and Kendra Winchester (Read Appalachia)

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​Dr. Chea Parton (Reading Rural YAL) and Kendra Winchester (Read Appalachia) will host a live podcast episode where they'll highlight and discuss their favorite rural Appalachian reads. They'll also take questions from the audience. 

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Bios: Chea Parton grew up on a farm and still considers herself a farm girl. She has been a rural student and is currently a rural middle school English Teacher and visiting assistant professor at Purdue University where she works with future teachers through the Transition to Teaching Program. She is passionate about rural education. Her research focuses on the personal and professional identity of rural and rural out-migrant teachers as well as rural representation in YA literature. She currently runs Literacy In Place where she seeks to catalogue rural YA books and provides teaching resources, hosts the Reading Rural YAL podcast where she gives book talks and interviews rural YA authors, and serves on the Whippoorwill Book Award for Rural YA Literature selection committee. You can reach her at readingrural@gmail.com.

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Kendra Winchester is a Contributing Editor for Book Riot where she writes about audiobooks and disability literature. Originally from the Ohio River Valley, she is also the Founder of Read Appalachia, which celebrates Appalachian literature and writing. Previously, Kendra co-founded and served as Executive Director for Reading Women, a podcast with LitHub Radio that gained an international following over its six-season run. In her off hours, you can find her writing on her Substack, Winchester Ave, and posting photos of her Corgis on Instagram and Twitter @kdwinchester.

2pm - 2:45pm: Tucker Leighty Phillips [Appalshop]

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Childhood is a time when the world is entirely unfamiliar. We are learning, growing, and gathering experiences that impact how we view and participate in the world. When writing from a child's perspective, it is easy to fall into traps of creating work that is overly sentimental, contrived, or downright clueless. To combat this; we must re-enter our own childhood memories and attempt to reimagine the mundanity of our world. We will revisit places from our youth; schools, grocery stores, swimming pools. We will reconvene our childhood notions of authority figures, teachers and bus drivers and college students. Most importantly–we will get in touch with our childhood selves. Together we will look at story models, discuss the artistic process, and practice writing the specific experience of childhood in a way that honors the fascination and fears of early development. There will be a series of prompts, and attendees should anticipate spending a significant amount of time both in discussion and writing.

Bio: Tucker Leighty-Phillips is the author of Maybe This Is What I Deserve (Split/Lip Press, 2023). He was raised in Laurel County, Kentucky, and much of his writing centers around Appalachia, poverty, and childhood. His writing has been published in The Offing, The Adroit Journal, BOOTH, and has been twice-anthologized in Best Microfiction. He works for Appalshop, an Appalachian Arts & Media organization, and lives in Central Pennsylvania. His website is TuckerLP.net.

3pm - 3:45pm: Dr. Chea Parton [Literacy in Place]

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During this roundtable, Dr. Parton will facilitate a book-club-style discussion about the rural Appalachian literature attendees read as part of the reading challenge. We'll talk about themes and issues seen within and across the books as well as what we enjoyed about and learned from them.

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Bio: Chea Parton grew up on a farm and still considers herself a farm girl. She has been a rural student and is currently a rural middle school English Teacher and visiting assistant professor at Purdue University where she works with future teachers through the Transition to Teaching Program. She is passionate about rural education. Her research focuses on the personal and professional identity of rural and rural out-migrant teachers as well as rural representation in YA literature. She currently runs Literacy In Place where she seeks to catalogue rural YA books and provides teaching resources, hosts the Reading Rural YAL podcast where she gives book talks and interviews rural YA authors, and serves on the Whippoorwill Book Award for Rural YA Literature selection committee. You can reach her at readingrural@gmail.com.

4pm - 4:45pm: Teri Lott [Professional Storyteller]

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Teri Lott, a professional storyteller, will share the life story of Emma “Grandma” Gatewood, the first woman to walk the Appalachian Trail solo. Emma raised 11 children almost single-handedly while also working in the fields and dealing with a violent husband. She is truly the embodiment of the hard-working, underappreciated Appalachian woman. The next twenty minutes or so are devoted to The Pack Horse Library Project, which was established by the WPA in the 1930’s. People, mostly women, were paid to travel throughout Eastern Kentucky to deliver books to folks who lived in remote regions of Kentucky. Some rode horses, some mules, and some hiked to deliver the books in all kinds of weather – just like the United Postal Workers!

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Bio: Teri Lott spent her early years in Portsmouth, Ohio, a city nestled in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. She enjoys telling traditional tales, original stories, and personal tales. Although Teri delights in telling tales to all ages of listeners, she especially likes to share stories with multigenerational audiences and has done so at many festivals and other venues. Teri has also published four books for children and their families. Contact her at lotts.of.tales@gmail.com.