Rose Glen Literary Festival 2018

Mark your calendars now to attend the Rose Glen Literary Festival on Saturday, Feb. 24, 2018 at the Sevierville Convention Center. This year’s keynote speaker is Wiley Cash who is a writer in residence at the University of North Carolina-Ashville and also teaches in the Low-Residency MFA Program in Fiction and Nonfiction Writing at Southern New Hampshire University. Cash holds a B.A. in Literature from the University of North Carolina-Asheville, an M.A. in English from the University of North Carolina-Greensboro, and a Ph.D. in

Author Wiley Cash will be the keynote speaker at the Rose Glen Literary Festival in Sevierville, Tennessee. Photo credit: Brady Cash

English from the University of Louisiana-Lafayette. Cash’s stories have appeared in The Crab Orchard Review, Roanoke Review and the Carolina Quarterly. His essays on Southern Literature have appeared in American Literary Realism, The South Carolina Review, and other publications. All programs at the Festival are free with the exception of the luncheon ($20 per person.) Tickets may be purchased at the Sevierville Chamber of Commerce.

Other exciting featured authors, presentations and workshops at the 2017 Rose Glen Literary Festival:

9:15- 10: a.m. David Madden, LSU Robert Penn Warren Professor Emeritus of Creative Writing and the author of such novels as

Author David Madden

Cassandra Singing and The Suicide’s Wife, a CBS Movie of the week in 1979 that was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. His collection of short stories includes The New Orleans of Possibilities; On The Big Wind, and The Last Bizarre Tale. Other works include Hair of the Dog, Pleasure Dome and Abducted by Circumstances.

9:15-10 a.m. Bren McClain, author of One Good Mama Bone, is a two time winner of the South Carolina Fiction Project and recipient of the 2005 Fiction Fellowship by the South Carolina Arts Commission.

9:30-11 a.m. Workshop by Christopher Herbert, author of Angels of Detroit. Hebert is a graduate of the University of Michigan and former senior editor of the University of Michigan Press, and winner of the 2013 Friends of American Writers award. He is currently Assistant Professor of English at the University of Tennessee.

9:30 – 11 am. ABCs of Writing for Children Workshop conducted by Debbie Dadey and Rick Starkey. Dadey, who wrote Adventures of the Bailey School Kids and the Mermaid Tales, recently released a new book, Ready, Set, Goal. Starkey, a Sevier County native who lives in a 200-year-old cabin in the Great Smoky Arts and Crafts Community where he and his wife own a magic shop and craft store, is the author of Blue Bones.

Author Kathryn Smith

10:15-11 a.m. Kathryn Smith, author of The Gatekeeper: Missy LeHand, FDR and the Untold Story Partnership that Defined a Presidency, earned a bachelors degree in journalism at the University of Georgia, worked as a daily newspaper reporter and editor, and has been the book columnist for the Anderson Independent Mail for 20 years.

10:15-11 a.m. RB Morris, a singer-songwriter whose songs have been recorded by John Prine and Marianne Faithful, has published several books of poetry. These include Early Fires, Littoral Zones, and The Mockingbird Poems. He is the current Poet Laureate of Knoxville.

11:15 to 12: a.m Mark Powell is the author of five novels including Echolocation. He holds degrees from the Yale Divinity School, the University of South Carolina, and the Citadel. Powell, who received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Breadloaf and Sewanee Writers Conferences, was also a Fulbright Fellow to Slovakia 2014.

11:15-12:a.m Jennifer McGaha lives in a wooded Appalachian hollow where she farms and writes about family, farming and Appalachian culture. Her essays have appeared in dozens of blogs and magazines including The Good Men Project, the Chronicle of Higher Education Baltimore Fishbowl and others. She is a regular contributor to The Huffington Post.

12:30-2 p.m. Luncheon Keynote Speaker, Wiley Cash, writer-in-residence at the University of North Carolina-Asheville and teacher in the Low-Residency MFA Program in fiction and nonfiction Writing at Southern New Hampshire University.

2:15-3:30 p.m. Panel Discussion:
Bill Landry. Landry is the voice, host, narrator, and co-producer of The Heartland Series, which has aired on WBIR-TV for nearly 30 years

Bill Landry author and host of the Hearland Series. Photo credit: Fentress County historical society.

and, has received two Emmy Awards for directing the series. Landry holds an MFA from Trinity University at the Dallas Theater Center and a BA in Literature from the University of Tennessee. In 2009, Landry premiered his DVD production of William Bartram – An Unlikely Explorer for the 75th anniversary of the founding of The Great Smoky Mountain National Park.

Sam Venable, a graduate of the University of Tennessee and author of 12 books, is a former feature writer and police reporter for the Knoxville journal and the Chattanooga News-Free Press. A member of the East Tennessee Writers Hall of Fame and Tennessee Journalism Hall of Fame, Venable has won more than three dozen national and regional writing awards. Now retired as a humor columnist for the Knoxville News Sentinel, Venable continues to write news and outdoor columns for the paper.

Linn Stepp is On Adjunct faculty at Tusculum College where she teaches research. She has taught a variety of psychology and counseling courses for more than 16 years. Stepp has nine published novels each set in different locations around the Smoky Mountains. She and her husband have published a Smokies hiking guide.

Stephen Lyn Bales is senior naturalist at Ijams Nature Center in Knoxville, Tennessee. He has written for Smithsonian Magazine and is a regular contributor to the Tennessee Conservationist magazine. He is also a regular speaker at Wilderness Wildlife Week. His first book Natural Histories covered the history of the Tennessee Valley. Bales second book, Ghost Birds; Jim Tanner and the Quest for the Ivory-billed Woodpecker, 1935-1941, recalls Jim Tanner, the only ornithologist to conduct an in-depth study of the largest woodpecker to live in the United States, the legendary ghost bird of the south.

Check out this impressive video about the history of Rose Glen and its founders who inspired the creation of the Rose Glen Literary Festival.