Press release from UNC Asheville:
Appalachian Writers Jim Minick and Anne Cortes to Present at Next UNC Asheville Writers at Home Event at Malaprop’s on March 18
Jim Minick and Anne Cortes – two writers who bring Appalachia to life on the page – will read from their works at 3 p.m. on Sunday, March 18, in the next installment of the Writers at Home series, presented by UNC Asheville’s Great Smokies Writing Program (GSWP) at Malaprop’s Bookstore/Café, 55 Haywood Street in downtown Asheville. This monthly series of free, public readings is hosted by GSWP director and novelist Tommy Hays.
Minick is the author of five books, including Fire Is Your Water, a debut novel released in 2017. His memoir, The Blueberry Years, won of the Best Nonfiction Book of the Year from the Southern Independent Booksellers Association. His honors include the Jean Ritchie Fellowship in Appalachian Writing, and the Fred Chappell Fellowship at University of North Carolina-Greensboro. His work has appeared in many publications including Poets & Writers, Oxford American, Shenandoah, Orion, San Francisco Chronicle, Encyclopedia of Appalachia, Conversations with Wendell Berry, Appalachian Journal, and The Sun. He is assistant professor of English at Augusta University and core faculty in the low-residency MFA program at Converse College.
Cortes is part of the seventh generation to grow up on her family farm in the Swannanoa Valley. As a student decades ago at UNC Asheville, she first encountered the word topophilia in Alan Watts’ autobiography, and her writing has come to reflect her affective bond with countless places across the country as well as Western North Carolina. She will read from a story, workshopped at a GSWP class and based on her family’s experience, of the struggle between tradition and modernization in rural Appalachia.
For more information about UNC Asheville’s Great Smokies Writing Program, which offers workshops for writers of all levels in poetry, prose, creative nonfiction and marketing of one’s works, visit unca.edu/gswp.
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