What Writers Have Said

Maybe not then, but after a map and anticipation shepherded me across the narrow bridge into a world colored green and the office of Mike Mullins, of course I knew. I belonged.

Even when Mike pointed to the steep incline and said, “You’re up there,” I knew I’d love it.

Judy Roth and Marianne Worthington were my roommates in a small room that reminded me of bygone camping days. Twenty or more of us lived in the cabin, gathering on the sunlit porch, trading stories and words of encouragement. The great room at the center of the cabin drew us together in late evening, when we talked about everything from metaphysics to how we got ideas for stories. Mary Hodges kept us in stitches with funny anecdotes about her life in Tennessee and it was the best when she played her guitar and we sang old songs and hymns.

In the Dining Hall we ate like truck drivers. Great meals of ham and eggs and bacon and biscuits and hot cakes, bowls of fruit and bins of southern chicken ad fresh corn filled us and carried us through active days. Before each meal, we sang a song of thanksgiving. After each meal, those on clean up duty, cleaned up, just like home…

It was an expanded me who drove home. Not physically, for the trek up and down that steep hill took off any pounds I might have added, but inside, I was different.

I became a writer at Hindman. And I knew I would go back. –Carol Brodtrick, Huntington, WV

A Tote Bag and Sneakers
“When I went to Hindman for the first time over a decade ago, I had no idea what to expect. I guess I thought accommodations would be something like those in a motel, or at least like those in a college dorm. I brought various changes of clothes in a big burgundy Pullman bag, a matching cosmetic bag and a lighted make-up mirror. Mike Mullins told me I would be staying in the “dorm.”

There were no porters, and when I lugged my bags into the dorm, I stood speechless, staring into the big open area with berths that resembled the open spaces in a honeycomb. I knew I was ill prepared to survive my stay in the dorm.

Shortly other ladies came, and by the evening we were already bonding. We were all ages, from early twenties to probably late sixties, and we were soon a tight team, sitting up every evening sharing our writings with each other. For many of us, it was the first time we’d ever read our stories and poems. We laughed and cried together and supported each other as writers and friends. For many of us, our writing career and our awakening to who we really are began at Hindman in the dorm. And I realized that all I needed was a tote bag and sneakers – and my Hindman family.” –Mary Bozeman Hodges, Jefferson City, TN

Hindman – The Crossing
“[By the end of my first classes on Monday,] a veil [had] lifted and I could see fresh stories taking shape in my head….There was so much to learn, I did not want to leave. I could have lain down in the grass on that hillside and drunk the cool mountain mist that hung in the evergreen trees. I had mustered up the courage to share some of my writing exercises in class. In so doing, I had picked up several new friends. I remember bunching up with people and staying through the late afternoon to hear participants reading and to eat supper in that place of words. I felt like an electron in a molecule, part of a whole, drawn in and spinning together I ate quickly and as I got up to leave, people followed me with hugs and phone numbers and addresses.

I went back home across that bridge, but I wasn’t the same.” –Marie Bradby, Louisville, KY

From Kin Folk
“I’d been to other writers conferences, including the hierarchical hell that was Bread Loaf, and I could tell that Hindman was nothing like that place. And I soon realized what the primary difference was: This gathering was in Appalachia. Almost all of its faculty and students and staff were mountain folk. They were aware that they were mountain folk; they were proud that they were mountain folk; and I started recovering my own dormant Appalachian-ness. I understood how these people talked, how they thought, and especially what they laughed at: I felt like I had come home after an extended sojourn in a flat and foreign land.” –Michael McFee, Chapel Hill, NC

Right in My Own Backyard Little did I know then there was a place called Hindman, a place where people talked about books they had read, and shared their own words, music, and love of the mountains and mountain people. Here was the world I dreamed of – right in my own backyard.” –Lou Martin, Albuquerque, NM

A Rich Heritage 

“Many alumnae of the workshops would later emerge with books (Silas House, Leatha Kendrick, Dana Wildsmith, and others) and some lucky few would even be anointed by Mike to come back to help lead workshops. The heritage of the workshop is a rich one in writings and friendships through the long years of its existence.” –Jonathan Greene, Franklin County, KY

 

“…I like the peace and quiet of the place. It’s the only time during the year when I spend a whole week without television, when the only sounds I notice are birds, the dinner bell, and human voices. The energy I carry home from that stillness and those voices sustains me.” –Sandra L. Ballard, Boone, NC

 

“…it brought home with total clarity the fact that Appalachian writers, and specifically Hindman writers, are my community. And I think because of that realization, I did not feel that textbook desperation or feeling of being cut off when I graduated the M.F.A. program and was cut loose on my own. It seemed very obvious to me that the M.F.A. degree looks good on paper, but the real training and preparation I got during those years came during the summer vacations when I was back in the hills of Kentucky with my people." –Lisa Parker, New York City, NY

 

“I am a sixty year old biology professor, and never likely to be a noted writer or biologist. If one objective of writing is to bring catharsis, understanding, and a sense of art to us as writers, then it doesn’t matter whether my efforts are published or not. Hindman has more than fulfilled its mission for me. From the dining hall to the workshops, my plate has been filled.” –Les Brown, Boiling Springs, NC

 

Write What You Know
“Talking Perry County kinfolks around the dinner table. Laughing over mountain-raised men with soapsuds to their elbows, taking their turn washing supper dishes. Harmonizing ‘Amazing Grace’ at midnight out on the front porch. Taking good-natured ribbing for sitting-in on a video class and not even owning a video camera. Sounds more like a visit back home, doesn’t it? I think that’s why so many of us keep going back. And being able to keep in mind always Mr. Still’s words: ‘Listen to the people around you – pay attention to what they do. Write what you know about." –Norma Ramsey Eversole, Rockcastle County, KY

All quotations were taken from Crossing Troublesome: 25 Years of the Appalachian Writers Workshop, edited by Leatha Kendrick and George Ella Lyon. Published by Wind Publications. Copyright 2002. Copies available from Hindman Settlement School.