Anne Shelby
Born and raised in southeastern Kentucky, Anne Shelby received her B.A. from St. Andrews Presbyterian College and her M.A. from the University of Kentucky. She has published in a variety of genres, including six illustrated books for children; a collection of poems titled Appalachian Studies (2006); a volume of essays, Can a Democrat Get into Heaven? Politics, Religion and Other Things You Ain't Supposed to Talk About (2006); and a book of folktales for younger readers titled The Adventures of Mollie Whuppie (2007).
Shelby is also a widely produced playwright, a singer, and an oral storyteller, having written and performed The Lone Pilgrim: Songs and Stories of Aunt Molly Jackson. Her play Passing through the Garden: The Work of Belinda Mason was a finalist at the Barter Theatre's Festival of Appalachian Playwrights.
She has won the Appalachian Writers Association's Poetry Competition and West Virginia Public Radio's Appalachian History Playwriting Competition. Both the Kentucky Foundation for Women and the Kentucky Arts Council have awarded her writing grants.
Selected Bibliography
- Appalachian Studies
- Can a Democrat Get into Heaven? Politics, Religion and Other Things You Ain't Supposed to Talk About
- The Adventures of Mollie Whuppie
Events
Emory & Henry's 29th annual Literary Festival is scheduled for Thursday-Friday, October 28-29, 2010. Events begin at 2:30 Oct. 28 with papers by Katherine Ledford and Chris Green. That evening at 7:30 Shelby will read from her work. On Oct. 29 Roberta Herrin will present a third paper at 2:30, followed by a public interview with Shelby conducted by Marianne Worthington.
All these events are free and open to the public. They will be held in the Board of Visitors Lounge in the Van Dyke Center on the College's campus.
Thursday
2:30 p.m. - paper by Katherine Ledford, Appalachian State University
3:30 p.m. - paper by Chris Green, Marshall University
7:30 p.m. - Anne Shelby reads from her work
Friday
2:30 p.m. - paper by Roberta Herrin, East Tennessee State University
3:30 p.m. - public interview with Anne Shelby conducted by Marianne Worthington, University of the Cumberlands
About the Festival
The Emory & Henry Literary Festival began in 1982 with a program devoted to Sherwood Anderson, who spent the final 15 years of his life in nearby Smyth County, Virginia. Since that inaugural occasion the festival has honored a living writer with strong ties to the Appalachian region, an author who comes to campus for a reading and a public interview and who listens to two or three papers about her/his work.
The proceedings of each festival, along with some new writing by the featured author, are published in an annual issue of the College's Iron Mountain Review. Eight of the essays from these festivals were reprinted in An American Vein: Critical Readings in Appalachian Literature (2005). The interviews conducted at the festivals from 1983 to 2003 have been reprinted by the University of Tennessee Press in Appalachia and Beyond: Conversations with Writers from the Mountain South (2006).
Iron Mountain Review
Editor's Note from the 25th Anniversary Issue
The 2006 Literary Festival marked the twenty-fifth such event sponsored by Emory & Henry College. The proceedings of each festival have been published in an issue of The Iron Mountain Review, starting with the Sherwood Anderson issue in the spring of 1983. That issue is now unavailable, but limited quantities of each of the others remain. They include issues on James Still, Fred Chappell, Lee Smith, John Ehle, Jim Wayne Miller, Wilma Dykeman, Robert Morgan, Mary Lee Settle, Charles Wright, David Huddle, George Ella Lyon, Jeff Daniel Marion, Meredith Sue Willis, Gurney Norman, Jo Carson, Denise Giardina, George Scarbrough, Lisa Alther, Kathryn Stripling Byer, Michael McFee, Ron Rash, Maggie Anderson, Sharyn McCrumb, Michael Chitwood, Frank X Walker and Silas House, together with special numbers on the Holston River and on the poetry and artwork of Michael Martin.
Back issues of IMR may be ordered from the editor at a cost of $5 each, which includes the price of postage. Checks should be made payable to The Iron Mountain Review. For more information write Dr. John Lang, PO Box 64, Emory, VA 24327 or email jlang@ehc.edu
Table of contents for the 25th Anniversary issue.
Contact
John Lang, Department of English
Emory & Henry College
PO Box 947
Emory, VA 24327-0947
276.944.6143
jlang@ehc.edu
