Literature and storytelling play important roles in Arthurdale’s history, especially in the Arthurdale Community School. First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt donated books from her own library to the school where the students were taught and encouraged to read. Students also composed poetry, stories, and wrote and performed their own plays. Additionally, oral storytelling was a part of homesteaders’ everyday lives, whether it be a means of conveying a real-life experience or simply a way to pass the time.
For centuries, narratives about Appalachia told by outsiders have often portrayed this region and our people in a negative light. Today, Arthurdale Heritage believes that the stories we tell as Appalachians define who we are. Through writing workshops, lectures, plays, storytelling events, and a writers residency, we hope to give Appalachians the tools and the opportunities they need to tell their own stories.
2026 Programs & Events
- March 6 - Writing Workshop and Rita Avashia “Know Your Neighbors” Reading with Arthurdale’s Writer in Residence, Monic Ductan
- July 11 - New Deal Fest: Local Author Book Signings
- August 28 - Writing Workshop and Travis Stimeling “Know Your Neighbors” Memorial Reading with Ann Pancake, Natalie Sypolt, and Arthurdale’s Writer-in-Residence, Aurora Bonner
- September 11 - A Midsummer Night’s Dream: Shakespeare in Arthurdale with The Rustic Mechanicals
More will be announced soon!
Arthurdale Writer's Residency
This is a one-week long residency for emerging and mid-career writers who strive to write more nuanced narratives about Appalachia, including queer and BIPOC narratives. The writer-in-residence will stay on a rural Arthurdale homestead in a historic cottage surrounded by tall trees and will be given a $250 stipend. On the Friday during their residency, they will teach an hour-long writing workshop followed by a public reading at the annual "Know Your Neighbors" Reading, at Arthurdale Heritage.
Learn more on the Writer's Residency webpage.
Local Authors
Our craft shop features work by a number of local authors. We invite you to read their work and learn more about them!
Torli Bush
Torli Bush is a poet from Webster Springs, WV. They hold a Bachelor’s of Science in Mechanical Engineering from West Virginia University and a MFA in Creative Writing from West Virginia Wesleyan College. Torli is currently a poetry editor for Heartwood Literary Magazine and their work has appeared in K’in Literary Journal, Appalachian Lit, Callaloo, In the Shadow of the Mic: Three Decades of Slam Poetry in Pittsburgh, and Anthology of Appalachian Writers – Ann Pancake Volume XVI. A significant portion of their first collection, Requiem for A Redbird, originally entitled American Psalms, was also named as a finalist in the 2023 Center for African American Poetry and Poetics Book Prize from the University of Pittsburgh.
Kirk Judd
Kirk Judd has lived, worked, trout-fished and wandered around in West Virginia all of his life. Kirk was a member of the Appalachian Literary League, a founding member and former president (and JUG recipient) of West Virginia Writers, Inc. , and is a founding member of and creative writing instructor for Allegheny Echoes, Inc., dedicated to the support and preservation of WV cultural heritage arts. Author of 3 collections of poetry Field of Vision 1986, Tao-Billy 1996, and My People Was Music 2014, and a co-editor of the widely acclaimed anthology, Wild, Sweet Notes – 50 Years of West Virginia Poetry 1950 – 1999, he is widely published. He is internationally known for his performance work combining poetry and old time music, and has performed poetry in Ireland and across West Virginia at fairs, concerts, and festivals for the past 35 years.
Ann Pancake
Ann Pancake is a native of West Virginia. She has published two short story collections, Given Ground (2001) and Me and My Daddy Listen to Bob Marley (2015), and a novel, Strange As This Weather Has Been (2007), which was one of Kirkus Review’s Top Ten Fiction Books of the year, won the best Appalachian Book of the Year, and was a finalist for the Orion Book Award and the Washington State Book Award. She has also received a Whiting Award, an NEA grant, a Pushcart Prize, and the Bakeless Prize. Her stories, essays, scholarly articles, and journalism have appeared in venues like Orion, The Georgia Review, Manoa, Poets and Writers, The Journal of Appalachian Studies, and New Stories from the South, the Year’s Best. She lives in Arthurdale, West Virginia.
Natalie Sypolt
A native of Preston County, Natalie Sypolt lives and writes in West Virginia. She is the author of The Sound of Holding Your Breath (2018, West Virginia University Press) and her work has appeared in Glimmer Train, Appalachian Review (formerly Appalachian Heritage), Still: The Journal, r.kv.r.y., Superstition Review, Paste, Willow Springs Review, and The Kenyon Review Online, among other fine journals. Natalie is the winner of the Glimmer Train New Writers Contest, the Betty Gabehart Prize, the West Virginia Fiction Award, and the Still fiction contest. She was the first runner-up for the Poets Writers Maureen Egen Writers Exchange Award. Additionally, Natalie is co-owner and editor of Change Seven Magazine and is the immediate past President of the Appalachian Studies Association.
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