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Thank you for reading Still: The Journal. We would love to hear from you. Contact the editors by email at stilleditors@gmail.com. We also welcome feedback for the talented writers and artists we feature in each issue. If you have a message for them, we will be happy to pass it along.

Our mission is to provide a free website that offers excellent contemporary literary writing. Our emphasis is on the literature of the Appalachian region, and we are committed to publishing quality writing that does not rely on clichés and stereotypes. We want to feature writing that exemplifies the many layers and complexities of the region. We also feature writers with connections to the region. Still: The Journal has been publishing established and emerging writers, musicians, and visual artists since 2009. We publish three times a year, usually in February, June and October. Still: The Journal was awarded the e-Appalachia Award for Outstanding Website from the Appalachian Studies Association in March, 2014. The award is presented annually "in recognition of an outstanding website that provides insight on Appalachia and its people, or provides a vital community service to Appalachia."

Co-founder and Poetry Editor:
Marianne Worthington

Marianne is a poet, creative nonfiction writer, editor, and educator. Her work has appeared in Oxford American, CALYX, CHEAP POP, Reckon Review, and Grist, among other places. She received the Al Smith Fellowship from the Kentucky Arts Council and artist’s grants from Kentucky Foundation for Women. She co-edited Piano in a Sycamore: Writing Lessons from the Appalachian Writers’ Workshop and is author of a poetry chapbook. Her poetry collection is The Girl Singer (Fireside/University Press of Kentucky, 2021). She grew up in Knoxville, Tennessee and lives, writes, and teaches in southeast Kentucky.

Creative Nonfiction Editor:
Karen Salyer McElmurray

Karen writes both fiction and creative nonfiction. Her memoir, Surrendered Child, won the AWP Award Series for Creative Nonfiction. She is also the author of Wanting Radiance, a novel from University Press of Kentucky, Motel of the Stars, Editor's Pick from Oxford American, Strange Birds in the Tree of Heaven (University of Georgia Press), a novel that won the Lillie Chaffin Award for Appalachian Writing, and Walk Till the Dogs Get Mean: Meditations on the Forbidden from Contemporary Appalachia, an anthology co-edited with Adrian Blevins, from Ohio University Press. She recently published a collection of essays, Voice Lessons (Iris Press). Her essays have won the Annie Dillard Prize, the New Southerner Prize, the Orison Magazine Anthology Award and have several times been "Notable" in Best American Essays.

Fiction Editor:
Julia Watts

Julia is the author of over a dozen novels for adult and young adult readers including the Lambda Literary Award winning Finding H.F., the Lambda Literary Award finalist The Kind of Girl I Am, and the Golden Crown Literary Award winner Secret City. Her 2018 novel Quiver was an Indie Awards finalist, a VOYA Perfect 10 Award winner, and a Southeastern Independent Booksellers' Okra Pick. She is the co-editor, with Jeff Mann, of the anthology LGBTQ Fiction and Poetry from Appalachia, which was also a Lambda Literary Award finalist. Her new novel, Needlework, was just published by Three Rooms Press. Julia is a southeastern Kentucky native, and lives with her family in Knoxville, Tennessee.

Meet Julia

Co-founder and former Fiction Editor: