Winner of the 2026 Festival art contest. Untitled. Henry Payne, artist
By Ronni Lundy
Stories are how we make sense of the world and our place in it. This year’s Carolina Mountains Literary Festival, themed Porchlight: Stories That Guide Us Home, will explore the many ways they do in an event featuring two dozen outstanding contemporary authors. Running from Thursday, September 10, through Saturday, September 12, author talks and workshops take place in intimate venues around downtown Burnsville, and culminate with a banquet Friday evening and a keynote address Saturday night.
And who better to anchor this celebration of stories than keynote speaker Daniel Wallace? Wallace’s 1998 debut, Big Fish: A Novel of Mythic Proportions, is a magical realist treatise on the ability of Southern tale-telling to heal wounds and bind hearts across generations. “Remembering a man’s stories makes him immortal,” says Edward Bloom, the protagonist of Big Fish.
Five books later, Wallace, the Ross McDonald Distinguished Professor of English at UNC-Chapel Hill, has released a new collection of flash fiction, Beneath the Moon and Long Dead Stars. In this book, diners and dogs, coffin builders and more are captured with elegant economy. In an evening that will also include a Q&A, a book signing and an auction of some of his quirky drawings, Wallace will share insights into the art and purpose of story. “You’re not necessarily supposed to believe it,” Bloom says. “You’re supposed to believe in it.”
The festival will also showcase stories that have been long hidden or suppressed. Friday’s banquet will feature award-winning novelist and Kentucky Poet Laureate Crystal Wilkinson whose lauded food memoir/cookbook, Praisesong for the Kitchen Ghosts, limns the lives of the Black Appalachian women who shaped her own. “People are always surprised that Black people reside in the hills of Appalachia,” her book begins. “Those not surprised that we were there, are surprised that we stayed.” Food for the banquet will be prepared by Root Down Farm, a local and locally sourced Yancey County eatery.
The festival opens on Thursday with African American and Appalachian stories delivered by nationally renowned storyteller Donna Washington. Visually as well as vocally animated, Washington has been called “a walking Disney movie.” Of her work she likes to say, “Every story I tell is true… except for the parts I make up.”
Most authors will present on both Friday and Saturday morning or afternoon so festival goers won’t have to choose between simultaneous favorites. Among them, Willie Edward Taylor Carver, Jr., author of multi-award winning Gay Poems for Red States, will lead a poetry workshop on Saturday, and on Friday a session devoted to his novel Tore All to Pieces. Ann Kingsolver, director of the Appalachian Studies Program and Center at the University of Kentucky, describes Carver’s book as a place where “stars have sound, cabbages speak love and there is compassion for all.”
Dan Leach will be talking about Junah at the End of the World, a tender, funny and timely novel about a young boy dealing with his anxieties over the possible end of everything. Poet Cheryl Wilder returns with Singing Riptide, her continuing profound and touching exploration of guilt and healing that she first shared with festival goers with Anything That Happens in 2022.
Photographer Rob Amberg will discuss how “every picture tells a story, don’t it.” And for those interested in cultivating stories and more at home, Linda Marie-Barrett will instruct on Creating a Salon: The Magic of Conversations That Matter.
For the full schedule, and to buy tickets for Friday’s banquet and Saturday’s keynote, or to register for workshops (the rest of the events are free), visit CMLitFest.net.
