Workshop: Conversation with Your Ancestors Workshop with Pauletta Hansel

October 31

10:00 am-11:30 am

$30/members, $50/non-members

Lilienthal Gallery, 23 Emory Place, Knoxville TN

This hands-on session offers the tools of creative writing, especially poetry, to develop a deeper understanding of our ancestors. Pauletta Hansel will share prompts and tips she used in writing about 14 generations of her foremothers for her book, Understory: A Women’s History of Appalachia, forthcoming from University Press of Kentucky October 2026. Poems and prose excerpts from this book and other sources will be used as examples, along with writing prompts to be used during and after the session. Participants will have the opportunity to write and share writing during the session, as well as to ask questions about the ways in which creative writing can be tools for both writer and reader in understanding our families and ourselves.

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Pauletta Hansel is a poet, memoirist, and teacher whose eleven books include Understory: A Women’s History of Appalachia. Awards include the Poetry Society of Virginia’s North American Book Award, the Weatherford Award, and Judy Gaines Young Book Award. Born and raised in southeastern Kentucky, Pauletta was the first poet laureate of Cincinnati, where she has lived since 1979.

Linda Parsons is the Poet Laureate of Knoxville. She is also the poetry editor for Madville Publishing and the copy editor for Chapter 16, the literary website of Humanities Tennessee. She is published widely, and her sixth collection is Valediction: Poems and Prose. Five of her plays have been produced by Flying Anvil Theatre in Knoxville.