Fragments From Floyd

Maggie Anderson, Jeff Daniel Marion, Robert Morgan and Ron Rash form the panel to discuss "Nature, Place, and the Appalachian Writer" at the 25th Literary Festival, Emory and Henry College.

The day's events consisted of three panel discussions and four readings by poets and authors. It was held in the sanctuary of the campus chapel which didn't lend itself to an easy flow of folks to chat in between sessions, and the acoustics of the vaulted ceiling didn't suit my ears, and I'm afraid I missed some of what was said. I didn't always sit as close as I did for the first session from which this image was collected; if I had, I would have picked up more of the speakers' words.

If you didn't already know folks, this was not the kind of gathering where it would have been easy to meet new people. I did recognize a lot of faces, but without name tags or a common social area, it was hard--at least for me--to strike up conversations with strangers.

One nice thing: sitting alone after the first session, I happened to look across to the other side of the aisle and there was Joyce Dyer, whose brief contact at Hindman made me know I knew nothing about memoir. I've used her definition of the genre in some of my book talks. I slipped over to sit and chat, and was able to hand her a copy of Slow Road Home which she received most graciously; I half-think she'll actually read it someday.

I'd intended to go back to Hindman Settlement School's summer Writers Conference this year if Joyce had been on the staff and would have taken her course (I only audited it last time) so she could help me polish the book before printing. She wasn't on the staff this year, so I wrapped up the book as-is, and was able to give her a copy, with an inscription and thanks, yesterday. That was sorta neat.

I was invited to join the speakers that evening at a certain "party room" at the Comfort Inn, which would have been great--to sit and party with the Olympus of App Lit, but I wasn't staying past mid-afternoon. It would almost have been worth it to hang out til midnight, get home at two. But I'm heading toward Blacksburg here in a few, and need to be at least minimally together.

I'm farther along in my App-assimilation than I was four years ago, to be sure. But I still stand small along the margins of the domain of regional writing and writers. True, I have a book now to my credit, which is a kind of credentialing; but it isn't a "real" book in the minds of many, being self-published, author-subsidized, and invisible. It is light weight and superficial by most standards (I fully accept this as the case, in terms relative to the works of those presenting at Emory.)

Not being in academia, I'm outside the somewhat incestuous brotherhood in which everybody inside the circle reads and reviews and discusses the work of others on the inside. But I'm an armchair writer, and have no aspirations to be a full-time scholar. So I guess I'm coming to some kind of balance point as a son of the southern mountains, with some distance yet to go, trying to find my place while being fully rooted and at home.