The best kept secret for writers in the Southern Appalachian Mountains is behind this door,

the writing studio at John C. Campbell Folk School.

Sept.13-18, 2009, I spent a week in the writing studio at John C. Campbell Folk School, teaching a writing class.

Cane Weaving Chair Seats and Backs was taught by Raleigh, NC instructor Bud Conner.

I'm reliving memory today. Can't help it. It was one of the best classes I have taught. The class was WHAT'S IN YOUR WRITING FOLDER? and our focus was writing the personal essay, short short and poetry. The students this time were all living in the south, all writing on their own, all having individual projects they hoped to advance, and I am happy to say, they did that.

Writer, Mary Louise Stark from Rabun County Georgia

Class member, Poet Rachel Bronnum is a member of NCWN West and she has two poems forthcoming in Echoes Across the Blue Ridge.

An excerpt from My Journey to Appalachia by Eleanor Lambert Wilson will be included in the forthcoming anthology Echoes Across the Blue Ridge: Stories, Essays and Poems by Writers Living in and Inspired by the Southern Appalachian Mountains edited by Nancy Simpson.

On Monday when I gave a personal essay writing assignment, the students scatterd to find a place to write. I found Lisa sitting outside under what we call "The Poet Tree." When we shared our writing later in the day she said, " I didn't write an essay. I could only write a poem." I said,

"That's because you were sitting under the poet tree. We got a big laugh out of that, and I took her picture under the tree.

Scientist Walter Schrimper from Tennessee, caught writing his essay "Apples and Atoms"

On Thursday afternoon, the class read in a public reading at the school. We had a good audience, all chairs filled. That was encouraging. As the period went on, we learned that many in the audience were from the Recycling Class. I thought that odd, but one of our class members said it is not strange at all that the recycling class came to support us because we both do the same thing. True. On Friday when we went to the student exhibit, I was most taken by the work of the recycling class.

THE ART OF REUSE: WORKING WITH SALVAGE AND FOUND OBJECTS taught by Kimberly Joris at Sept. 13-18, 2009 at John C. Campbell Folk School.