Join an evening with Arthurdale Heritage’s first Writer-in-Residence, Monic Ductan! Monic Ductan grew up in rural Georgia. Daughters of Muscadine, her debut short story collection, won the Weatherford Award and the Tennessee Book Award. Monic was awarded a 2023 Individual Artist grant in fiction from the Tennessee Arts Commission and a 2025 Walter E. Dakin Fellowship in fiction from the Sewanee Writers’ Conference. Her poem, “Mama Took Grandma to Vote for Kennedy,” won the Tennessee Williams and New Orleans Literary Festival Contest in 2025. Monic’s work has appeared in a number of journals, including Oxford American, Appalachian Review, and Shenandoah. She teaches at Tennessee Tech University and lives in middle Tennessee.
5:30pm – Creative Writing Workshop | “Mix & Match: Mining Your Past for Setting Details”
Free (suggested donation $10)
For this workshop, you will focus on using significant details and sensory impressions from your own lives. Using a nostalgia-themed writing prompt, the instructor will challenge participants to write about familiar settings and to mix and match settings to fit their prose. For instance, the smell of their grandma’s kitchen might be compatible with the old wallpaper in their neighbor’s basement and the paper dolls from their elementary school. You will also use excerpts from published writing as examples to guide you.
7:00pm – Annual Rita Avashia “Know Your Neighbors” Reading
Free
Featuring Monic Ductan, and local authors Ann Pancake and Torli Bush. Moderated by Neema Avashia.
Authors will read aloud selections from their own writing. There will be a Q&A following the reading. Light refreshments will be provided.
Ann Pancake
Ann Pancake is a native of West Virginia. She has published two short story collections, Given Ground, and Me and My Daddy Listen to Bob Marley, and a novel, Strange As This Weather Has Been, which was one of Kirkus Review’s Top Ten Fiction Books of the year, won the best Appalachian Book of the Year, and was a finalist for the Orion Book Award and the Washington State Book Award. She has also received a Whiting Award, an NEA grant, a Pushcart Prize, and the Bakeless Prize. She now resides in Arthurdale, West Virginia.
Torli Bush
Torli Bush is a poet from Webster Springs, WV. He holds a Bachelor’s of Science in Mechanical Engineering from West Virginia University and a MFA in Creative Writing from West Virginia Wesleyan College. In 2025, Torli received a Pushcart Prize and his first poetry collection, Requiem for A Redbird, was a finalist for the Weatherford Award. Torli is currently a poetry editor for Heartwood Literary Magazine.
