Submitted photo The second Arthurdale Writers Residency is scheduled for August.

Arthurdale Heritage is proud to announce their second Arthurdale Writers Residency this year, coming up in late August. This is a week-long residency to support the creative work of Appalachian writers. Located in the nation’s first New Deal Community of historic Arthurdale, and inspired by Arthurdale champion Eleanor Roosevelt, this residency is for emerging and mid-career writers who strive to write more nuanced narratives about Appalachia.

“For too long, dominant narratives about Appalachia have reduced this place, and its people, to one-dimensional representations on the page and screen,” said Neema Avashia, author of “Another Appalachia: Coming up Queer and Indian in a Mountain Place.”

“Too often, these representations exclude and erase the experiences of BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ Appalachians. They lack nuance when it comes to issues of faith, class, geography and cultural diversity. They leave too many of us feeling like outsiders in the place we call home.

“The Arthurdale Writers Residency is designed to support writers who seek to write and amplify Appalachian counternarratives. Specifically, to provide them with time and space for the very crucial work they do to complicate our collective Appalachian story,” Avasha said.

The writer-in-residence will stay in an original 1930s cottage on a rural Arthurdale homestead and will be given a $250 stipend. On Friday, Aug. 28, they will teach an hour-long writing workshop followed by a public reading for the Travis Stimeling “Know Your Neighbors” Memorial Reading at Arthurdale Heritage.

Arthurdale Heritage’s Appalachian Programs Coordinator, Mary Linscheid, sees the residency as a continuation of this New Deal Community’s legacy.

“Ninety years ago, Arthurdale was established to give poverty-stricken West Virginians a fresh start,” she said. “Former coal miners and their families moved into modern homes, learned new skills, and received the basic tools needed to do the hard work of creating a life of their own. It was all about giving folks a ‘hand-up,’ not a ‘hand-out’. That’s exactly what we hope to do with the Arthurdale Writers Residency – give writers’ creativity a chance to flourish.”

The residency will accept applications for poetry, fiction, non-fiction, creative non-fiction, songwriting, plays, and screen-plays. Applications will close May 31. The residency will take place Aug, 23-30. To learn more, visit https://arthurdaleheritage.org/arthurdale-writers-residency/.

Interested in financially supporting the Writers Residency program? Contact ahi@arthurdaleheritage.org or call 304-864-3959.