LGBTQ Literature in Appalachia

For this paper, I will present part of my work as the Sarah Denman Faces of Appalachia Fellow for the 2015-16 academic year, specifically my work on Appalachian literature by authors who self-identify as lesbian or gay or bisexual or transgender or queer or questioning (hereafter, LGBTQ). (The Denman Fellowship is sponsored by the Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Gender in Appalachia, and I will also be presenting my scholarship on this topic to the Marshall University community in spring 2016.) Authors covered by this research project include some of the most influential and highly-regarded contemporary writers/artists in (or from) Appalachia, including poet and essayist Jeff Mann; novelists Lisa Alther, Karen McElmurray, Carter Sickels, and Julia Watts; filmmaker Beth Stephens; Affrilachian poets Doris Diosa Davenport and Bianca Spriggs; and others. I will be situating these authors and their works within the traditions of Appalachian literature, American literature, and LGBTQ literature in the U.S. and internationally. Based on my preliminary inquiries, I suggest that these writers--like many other Appalachian artists--celebrate family and food and the land, yet they also write about feeling voiceless in an already silenced region, being outsiders-yet-insiders in an already marginalized and stereotyped culture