Featured Writing: Ironwood Writers Studio 2024


Writers featured from the Ironwood Writers Studio 2024:


Jasper Clark
O, Sweet Nothing

Oliver D. Cooper
The Pain of Being

Brennan Hoskins
Lovely Things

Ben Hutton
Bildungsroman

Fiona Jones
The Privilege of Forgetfulness and The Right to Remembrance

Tiffany Lin
My Baby Bird

Clover Mullins
Multi-instrumentalist

Keilee Mullins
My Heart Sinks

Kelsey Pearl
Meadowlark

Amy Roblero Perez
The Woman that Remained

Dixie Ritchie
Force of Nature

Laurel Ruff
It's Not Beneath Me

Virgil Voyles
2006-2024


Ironwood Writers Studio Students, Summer 2024


Ironwood Writers Studio Staff, Summer 2024 (l-r):
Manuel Iris; Tyler Barrett; Melissa Helton, director; Clinton Waters; Lacy Snapp; Julia Watts; Jamey Hill Temple

Director’s Introduction

Since early 2022, one of our programming initiatives at Hindman Settlement School has been to foster more opportunity for young writers to develop their craft, build a creative community of their peers, and bridge into 

the adult Appalachian writing community. One main way we’ve striven to do that is through Ironwood Writers 

Studio, a week-long residency where high school writers from across the region stay on campus, work with engaging and respected faculty, and explore their voice through writing, art, and performing. 


This June, we welcomed 16 high school writers from our local schools in Knott County, across central and eastern Kentucky, and from as far afield as North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia.  


This year, students studied poetry with Manuel Iris, nonfiction with Lacy Snapp, and fiction with Julia Watts. Clint Waters and Jamey Temple were on-site counselor-mentors. Other sessions included nature writing with Moriah Warner, mask painting with Cyan Cox, photography with Tyler Barrett, and a generative session with Kentucky 

Writers Hall of Fame member George Ella Lyon. Students also participated in team trivia and a cosplay supper. 


There is a lot of big-picture magic to Ironwood. Young writers get to explore different genres and see what they 

connect to and enjoy. They get an enthusiastic welcome into the Appalachian and Kentucky writing families, seeing that we’re all excited for what they will add to our literature and cultural ecosystem. They step into community that accepts and validates them across identity factors.



Perhaps most importantly, they meet other young writers. The creative life can be an isolating one, since much of 
the work of creation is done individually, especially when it comes to writing. And if we don’t have other creatives 
in our circle (a plight very common to folks in rural places) we can struggle to find understanding. If you ask a group 
of writers for a dry-sounding word for wet, or if dirt would smell shiny, or say a character you are writing is misbehaving and won’t follow the story line, they can offer answers, sympathy, and encouragement. Non-writers 
might not be able to.

During the week I watched these young writers read each other’s work and offer insightful commentary, hold space 
for each other’s grief and joy, teach and learn from each other. They stayed up too late, ate too much junk food, 
found kindred spirits and new facets of themselves. 

It is sad each year as students “age out” of the summer Ironwood residency, so we are looking for ways to build more bridges across into the adult community, and more ways to get the students together throughout the year. The Appalachian Arts Alliance in Hazard, Kentucky hosted a student spotlight event where Ironwood students’ writing, photography, and painted masks were displayed, and students performed a public reading. And this December, students past and present will be gathering together on the banks of Troublesome Creek to hold a winter writing 
retreat and present at the Settlement School’s literary and arts conference, Winter Burrow. 

~Melissa Helton, Director of Ironwood Writers Studio and Literary Arts Director at HSS

photos by Tyler Barrett


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