The Carolina Mountains Literary Festival, in Burnsville, North Carolina, takes place September 5-7.
Each year, the festival features talks and workshops for both writers and the general public.
This year, Charles Frazier, who grew up in the mountains of Western North Carolina, is the keynote speaker. His 1997 acclaimed first novel, Cold Mountain, was an international bestseller, won the National Book Award in 1997, and was adapted into an Academy Award-winning film. His later books, Thirteen Moons, Nightwoods, and Varina, were all New York Times bestsellers. Read about Varina here.
Other authors attending the festival include:
Marlin Barton, recipient of the Truman Capote Prize for short fiction. He teaches in, and helps direct, the Writing Our Stories project, a program for juvenile offenders created by the Alabama Writer’s Forum.
Wayne Caldwell, a native of Asheville, is the author of two novels, Cataloochee and Requiem by Fire, as well as several prize-winning short stories. He has won the Thomas Wolfe Memorial Literary Award from the WNC Historical Association and the James Still Award from the Fellowship of Southern Writers.
Jacqui Castle is a mountain author whose dystopian science-fiction novel, The Seclusion, was called a “must-have for all libraries and fans of sci-fi ” by School Library Journal.
Mylène Dressler is the author of four novels, including The Last To See Me, praised as a “bewitching, gorgeous mystery” by Kirkus Reviews and as “chilling” and “unforgettable” by Booklist. She is a professor of creative writing at Guilford College.
Georgann Eubanks is the author of the three volume North Carolina Literary Trails series of guidebooks. Her latest book is The Month of their Ripening: North Carolina Heritage Foods Through the Year. Read an excerpt here. She is the current president of the North Carolina Literary and Historical Association.
Tessa Fontaine is the author of The Electric Woman: A Memoir in Death-Defying Acts, a New York Times Editors’ Choice.
L.S. Gardiner is the author of Tales from an Uncertain World: What Other Assorted Disasters Can Teach Us About Climate Change. She creates educational experiences about weather and climate for blogs, websites, museum exhibits, and classrooms at the UCAR Center for Science Education, which is affiliated with the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado.
Jaki Shelton Green is the first African American and third woman to be appointed as the North Carolina Poet Laureate. She teaches Documentary Poetry at the Duke University Center for Documentary Studies where she is a past Duke University Teaching for Equity Fellow.
Jacquelyn Dowd Hall was the founding director of the Southern Oral History Program and is the Julia Cherry Spruill Professor of History Emerita at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is the author of Sisters and Rebels: A Struggle for the Soul of America, Revolt Against Chivalry: Jessie Daniel Ames and the Women’s Campaign Against Lynching.
Andrew Lawler, the Friday banquet keynote speaker, has written more than a thousand articles for more than two-dozen publications. His first book was Why Did the Chicken Cross the World?: The Epic Saga of the Bird that Powers Civilization, followed by the bestseller The Secret Token: Myth, Obsession, and the Search for the Lost Colony of Roanoke.
Jennie Liu is the author of Girls on the Line, a Junior Library Guild selection and honor mention with the Freeman Book Awards.
Jamie Mason is the author of Three Graves Full, Monday’s Lie, and most recently, The Hidden Things.
Stacy R. Nigliazzo is the award-winning author of Scissored Moon and Sky the Oar. Her poems have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies including the Beloit Poetry Journal, Ilanot Review, and the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Barbara O’Connor is the author of 17 novels and biographies for children. Her books have received many distinctions, including ALA Notable, NCTE Notables and Parents Choice Gold Awards.
Lisa Sturz has been a professional puppeteer for over forty years. She is is the Artistic Director of Red Herring Puppets, a national touring company specializing in curriculum-based performances.
Terry Roberts is author of the critically received The Holy Ghost Speakeasy and Revival. His debut novel, A Short Time to Stay Here, won the Willie Morris Award for Southern Fiction, and his second novel, That Bright Land, won the Thomas Wolfe Memorial Literary Award.
Read more about past festivals here.