Jo Allison is the author of a mystery series set in the 1910s, one accurate enough in its depiction of place that editors of a major publishing house sought her out to write Storied and Scandalous St. Louis: A History of Breweries, Baseball, Prejudice, and Protest (2021). She is currently writing a series set in World War One. Once a reporter in the Midwest and then an economics professor at Emory & Henry College, she retired to work at bringing together her love of fiction and her passion for history.

A Virginia native, Darnell Arnoult is author of the novel Sufficient Grace, poetry collections What Travels With Us, Galaxie Wagon, and the forthcoming Incantations: Poems. Her shorter works have appeared in a variety of journals and anthologies. She holds an MA from NCSU and an MFA from University of Memphis. She has taught creative writing across genres for over 30 years and offers a constellation of virtual and face-to-face workshops and services for writers and writing communities. She is the recipient of the SIBA Poetry Book of the Year Prize, Weatherford Award, Chaffin Award, and Hobson Award in Arts and Letters. She lives with her family in Mebane, N.C. For more about Darnell, visit darnellarnoult.net.

John Copenhaver’s historical crime novel, Dodging and Burning, won the 2019 Macavity Award for Best First Mystery and garnered Anthony, Strand Critics, Barry, and Lambda Literary Award nominations. He teaches fiction writing and literature at Virginia Commonwealth University and is a faculty mentor in the University of Nebraska’s Low-Residency MFA program. He grew up in the mountains of southwestern Virginia and lives in Richmond, VA, with his husband, artist Jeffery Paul (Herrity). His forthcoming third novel, Hall of Mirrors, is the sequel to The Savage Kind.

Victoria A. Fletcher has lived her entire life in Damascus, Virginia. I attended Virginia Intermont College where I received my B.A. in Education. I later attended Tusculum College and received my M.A. in Education. I was a teacher in the Washington County Virginia Schools for 30 years before retiring. I served as the church secretary for First Baptist Church in Damascus, Virginia from August 2010 to August 2018. I am now pursuing my career as a publisher. My office is at the Virginia Highlands Small Business Incubator in Abingdon, Virginia. I am looking forward to helping other authors realize their dream of publishing their own book. My interests include writing (of course), reading, Bible study, computers, music, board games, and puzzle books. I began writing poetry when I was 13 years old. Several of my poems have been published in poetry anthologies as well as in my own poetry book. My first Old Testament Stories book won the Xulon Press Choice Award for Children's Bible Story Books. To date, I have written 24 books of which 11 are children’s books.

Jesse Graves is the author of four poetry collections, including Specter Mountain (co-authored with William Wright), and Merciful Days. His work received the James Still Award for Writing about the Appalachian South from the Fellowship of Southern Writers and two Weatherford Awards from Berea College. He teaches at East Tennessee State University. Graves has edited several published volumes of poetry and scholarship, including Conversations with Robert Morgan (University Press of Mississippi, 2019) and Robert Morgan: Essays on the Life and Work (McFarland, 2022). Graves completed his MFA in Poetry Writing from Cornell University, and PhD in English from The University of Tennessee. He is Professor of English and Poet-in-Residence at East Tennessee State University.

Steven James is the critically-acclaimed author of seventeen novels. His books have been praised by Library Journal, the Associated Press, the New York Journal of Books, and Booklist, and garnered starred reviews from both Publishers Weekly and Library Journal. He has served as a contributing editor to Writer’s Digest Magazine and is the author of the groundbreaking book Story Trumps Structure as well as the guidebook used by thousands of novelists.

Matthew B. Kelley is a writer from Atlanta, GA. He holds degrees from Morehouse College and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where he was a Truman Capote Fellow in fiction. He has received fellowships from Callaloo Creative Writing Workshop and Kimbilio [Fiction]. He is an assistant professor in the Department of English at Emory & Henry College.

Lisa Kwong is the author of Becoming AppalAsian (Glass Lyre Press, 2022) and a member of the Affrilachian Poets. Born and raised in Radford, Virginia, Kwong identifies as AppalAsian, an Asian from Appalachia. A first generation college student, she received her B.A. in English with a music minor from Appalachian State University and earned an M.F.A. in poetry from Indiana University (IU). Her poem "Searching For Wonton Soup" was Sundress Publications' 2019 Poetry Broadside Contest Winner, and her work has been nominated for the Weatherford Award in Poetry, Pushcart Prize, and Best of the Net. Her poems have appeared in About Place Journal, Women Speak, Best New Poets, A Literary Field Guide to Southern Appalachia, Pine Mountain Sand & Gravel, Anthology of Appalachian Writers, Still: The Journal, Naugatuck River Review, Appalachian Heritage, Pluck!, The Sleuth, and other publications. She was selected as the 2023-2024 Appalachian Writer of Color by the West Virginia University Humanities Center and was a featured guest artist in the Adapted/Adopted: Journey of Asianx Women exhibition at East Tennessee State University’s Tipton Gallery.

Kwong is also a multidisciplinary educator. She has taught courses in Asian American studies, creative writing, English composition, and student success at IU and Ivy Tech Community College in Bloomington, Indiana. Additionally, she has taught poetry workshops for Writer’s Digest University, The Appalachian Symposium, and The Makery at Hindman Settlement School.

Greg Lilly, the author of five novels and a series of middle grade children’s books, grew up in Southwest Virginia. He’s a freelance writer, magazine editor, as well as a former Arts & Culture commissioner for the City of Sedona, Arizona and for the Williamsburg Area Arts Commission. Today, he writes and lives in Abingdon, Virginia. His true crime book, Abingdon’s Boardinghouse Murder, will be released in May 2024.

Robert Morgan is the author of several books of poems, including Terroir (2011) and Dark Energy (2015). He has published ten books of fiction, among them the New York Times bestseller Gap Creek, and, more recently, Chasing the North Star (2016), and In the Snowbird Mountains and Other Stories (2023). His works of nonfiction include Lions of the West (2011), the national bestseller Boone: A Biography (2007), and Fallen Angel: The Life of Edgar Allan Poe (2023). Recipient of awards from the Guggenheim Foundation and the American Academy of Arts and Letters, he is currently Kappa Alpha Professor of English (Emeritus) at Cornell University.

Nicholas Piper is the Associate Artistic Director of Barter Theatre in charge of New Play Development and the director of Barter’s Appalachian Festival of Plays and Playwrights(AFPP). As director of the AFPP, he has helped develop dozens of new plays for full production at Barter and regional theatres across the country. He is also the director of Barter’s College Playwright Festival, dedicated to giving undergraduate student playwrights a professional experience by working on their plays with the Barter Company. Nick is also a director and member of Barter’s Resident Acting Company. Favorite roles include George Bailey (It’s A Wonderful Life), Narrator (Every Brilliant Thing), Georges (La Cage Aux Folles), Edward Bloom (Big Fish), and Stanley Kowalski (A Streetcar Named Desire). He was recently awarded the AAME award for outstanding contribution to arts in the region.

Ed Snodderly is a songwriter, singer and guitar picker, following in the footsteps of songsters as varied as A. P. Carter to Riley Puckett to Ray Davies. His songs beat with a strong sense of place and the heart of them is a fresh, creative twist to the listener’s ear.