Appalachia Area

The Young Writers Program was started by the Hindman Settlement School in 2022 and incorporates two related efforts: The Ironwood Writers Studio and the Visiting Writer Residency program.

The Ironwood Writers Studio Is a week-long on-campus summer residency program for high school students from the Appalachia. It mirrors the structure of the Appalachian Writers Workshop which assembles a month later but designed for high school aged writers. During the week, participants take daily classes with published regional writers in genres such as poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. The week gives the students the opportunity to explore different genres of writing, feel valued as new members of the Appalachian creative community and find a cohort of peers who share common interests. In many cases, the formation of this cohort is a transformative experience for young adults. For many they report for the first time in their lives they “found their people” at Ironwood. Winter Burrow retreat is also hosted in December at Hindman is a great opportunity for the Hindman families to come together, such as Ironwood cohorts, to keep them engaged.

Winter Burrow retreat is also hosted in December at Hindman is a great opportunity for the Hindman families to come together, such as Ironwood cohorts, to keep them engaged.

The Visiting Writers Residency program works to identify students who have an aptitude for creative writing. Published authors from the region go into high schools served by the Hindman Settlement School to work directly with teachers to build creative writing lessons into their class curriculum. The visiting writers introduce students to Appalachian literature and provide experience in writing various genres over the course of class sessions. Students are introduced to Hindman Settlement School and encouraged to attend the Ironwood summer retreat if possible. If the costs of tuition for the retreat are a barrier for students (and that is the situation in many cases) both the James Baker Hall Foundation and Hindman Settlement School maintain scholarships for attending Ironwood in such cases. Mentioned elsewhere is the transportation issue, a problem solved for the time being by travel grants provided by the Foundation.

This work of teaching creative writing in Kentucky schools is made harder because creative writing is not an “art form” under Kentucky law. This makes funding programs and curriculum development problematic. This is something we as Kentuckians should all think about, given the legacy we are intent on furthering.

The partnership with The James Baker Hall Foundation is instrumental to the Hindman Settlement School’s aspirations of providing all 52 Appalachian counties in our Commonwealth with an accessible Ironwood or Ironwood like community opportunity. The logistics of reaching students across the Appalachian counties are daunting and our “Ironwood Shuttle” is not a permanent solution of course.

However daunting or not, the work of helping one young poet get to where other poets are, is important. Jim Hall would say it can be a matter of life and death. He believed in in the healing power of art. The process of making art, poetry and photographs, over the last 25 years of his life unearthed truths about his origins that he had been desperately searching for since witnessing his mother’s suicide when he was eight years old. He believed the clarity he came to, the truths he found through making his art, saved his soul when nothing else could. His lifelong friend Wendell Berry put it this way: “Jim Hall wrote his life from darkness into light, thereby making it whole.” *

Imagination in Place, Author Wendell Berry, 2010 Counter Point Press.