PEN America at the 2019 Greensboro Bound Literary Festival

This spring, PEN America is proud to partner with the 2019 Greensboro Bound Literary Festival in Greensboro, North Carolina.

Greensboro Bound enters the second year of its Literary Festival presenting over 90 authors in 65 events over 4 days in downtown Greensboro. Headline authors include Booker Prize-winning essayist and novelist Zadie Smith, indy music icons Ani DiFranco and Rhiannon Giddens, Pulitzer Prize shortlist and LA Times Fiction Award winner Rebecca Makkai, Whiting Award-winning poet Tyree Daye, best-selling Young Adult author Bill Konigsberg, and many more. There are events for children, teens, and adults across all genres. All events are free. See the full schedule here.

In a partnership with PEN America, Greensboro Bound is presenting four events in our Contemporary Appalachia series:

Strikes and Songs: Activism in Appalachia
7:00pm to 9:00pm
05/17/2019
Van Dyke Performance Space – Greensboro Cultural Center, 200 N. Davie St, Greensboro, NC 27401

Wiley Cash’s The Last Ballad is a novel based on the true story of Ella May Wiggins, who led a textile strike in Bessemer City, NC, in 1929. Catherine Venable Brown is writing a book on the Battle of Blair Mountain, a notorious coal mine strike in 1921 West Virginia. Cash and Brown will talk about the history of social activism in Appalachia and the way that history informs the present. They are joined by musician-songwriter Laurelyn Dossett, who will sing activist songs of the period, one written by Ella May herself.

Appalachian Reckoning: A Region Responds to Hillbilly Elegy
10:00am to 12:00pm
05/18/2019
Greensboro History Museum Auditorium, 130 Summit Ave, Greensboro, NC 27401

Contributors to the new book, Appalachian Reckoning: A Region Responds to Hillbilly Elegy discuss the misconceptions and assumptions about Appalachia which Hillbilly Elegy often glorifies and residents of the region struggle to overcome. With writers Robert Gipe (Trampoline) and Ricardo Nazario y Colón (Of Jibaros and Hillbillies) and editor Meredith McCarroll.

New Voices in Appalachian Writing
2:00pm to 3:30pm
05/18/19
Greensboro History Museum Auditorium, 130 Summit Ave, Greensboro, NC 27401

Contemporary Appalachian writing contains a multitude of voices: LGBTQ voices, those of mixed race, immigrant voices, and those from varying socio-economic levels. Carter Sickels (The Evening Hour), Mesha Maren (Sugar Run), and Michael Croley (Any Other Place) come together to talk about the changing faces of Appalachian literature.

Environment and Place in Contemporary Appalachia
3:15pm to 4:30pm
05/18/19
Greensboro History Museum Auditorium, 130 Summit Ave, Greensboro, NC 27401

Writers Robert Gipe (Weedeater), Valerie Nieman (To the Bones), and Carter Sickels (The Evening Hour) join journalist and writer Dana Coester to talk about the importance of the natural world and sense of place in writing about Appalachia.