Poet Diane Gilliam was born into a family that was part of the postwar Appalachian outmigration, and the region’s people populate her poetry collections One of Everything (2003), Kettle Bottom (2004), and Dreadful Wind and Rain (2017). Among her many awards and honors are the Ohio Arts Council Individual Artist’s Fellowship (2003), the Perugia Press Prize (2004), the Ohioana Poetry Book Award (2005), the Thomas and Lillie D. Chaffin Award for Appalachian Writing (2008), and the Gift of Freedom Award from A Room of Her Own Foundation (2013).
This year, she’ll be joining us for the first time at the Hobart Festival of Women Writers. I asked her about why she chose a generational approach in her first book of poetry, how poetry shapes and expands community — which she answered with a story! — and how the Gift of Freedom Award from A Room of Her Own Foundation has furthered her career. You can read her answers here.
At the Hobart Festival of Women Writers she’ll be teaching LEAPING Poetry. Here’s a bit about it:
We will be talking about energy and LEAPING in poems we admire and in poems of our own.
Some of our questions will be: Where does vision come from? What are some sources of energy in poems? What can we say about the nature of a leap? How do vision, energy and leaping manifest on the page? What textual strategies conjure them?
I’ll provide a handout of LEAPING poems and prompts for new poems as well as for revision. Participants are invited to bring a LEAPING poem of their own or someone else’s, and one of their own that’s in need of some LEAPING energy.
You can register for the workshop here. This year’s Hobart Festival of Women Writers will take place September 6-8. Join us in the beautiful Catskills for this writing retreat!
I’ll be teaching the writing workshop Wild Women on the Road, which you can register for here.
Stephanie Nikolopoulos 