Appalachian Songwriters Weekend
Hone your craft as a songwriter along the banks of Troublesome Creek. Learn from legendary Appalachian songwriters Dale Ann Bradley, Nicholas Jamerson (of Sundy Best), Cody Lee Meece, Doug Van Gundy, Sarah Kate Morgan, Matthew Sidney Parsons, and Anna Kline (of Swift Silver).
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Tentative Schedule
Saturday, July 19
12-1 p.m. Check in
1 p.m. Welcome & Faculty Concert
2 p.m. General Session with Nicholas Jamerson
3:15 p.m. Concurrent Songwriting Workshops
Writing in the Flow of Tradition (Doug Van Gundy & Sarah Kate Morgan)
Phrasing YOUR Story (Cody Lee Meece)
Storytelling with Songs (Dale Ann Bradley)
5:30 p.m. Dinner
6:30 p.m. Open Mic
8:00 p.m. Dale Ann Bradley in Concert
Sunday, July 20
9 a.m. Continental breakfast
10 a.m. Concurrent Songwriting Workshops
Learning the Lyrics: Songwriting Essentials (Matthew Sidney Parsons)
Art of the Edit (Anna Kline)
The Rhythm of Purpose: Finding Your Voice in Songwriting (Nicholas Jamerson)
12 noon Lunch
1 p.m. General Session with Dale Ann Bradley
2:15 p.m. Songwriters Panel with Staff Musicians
3 p.m. One-on-One Songwriting Coaching / Demo Recording Session
6:00 p.m. Dinner
7:30 p.m. Songwriters in Concert
While participation in Appalachian Songwriters Weekend is open to all, lodging is only available for admitted participants of the Appalachian Writers’ Workshop. For those AWW attendees who are lodging on campus, they will use the same housing option and will be charged an additional $20 fee for housing.
Workshop Descriptions
SATURDAY CONCURRENT SESSIONS
Doug Van Gundy & Sarah Kate Morgan
Cody Lee Meece
The two facets of songwriting that we will primarily focus on will be telling your story, and phrasing. YOUR story is very important. Oftentimes we can feel a sense that we are totally alone in our own personal trials and tribulations. While that may be true to some degree, you may also be surprised to find out just how many folks have shared a similar plot, or similar parallels, within their own stories as well. Many of those folks are just waiting on someone who can deliver them a reminder that they are not alone in these struggles. The same way that our songwriting heroes have reached us we, too, can reach others. Whether it’s stubbing your toe, falling out of love, or losing a loved one, we all know and share the feelings of pain and loss. Don’t leave any part of YOUR story off the table! We will also be discussing phrasing; particularly phrasing within each line individually. Using examples from some of my own material we will also touch on finding ways to use more challenging phrasing and rhyming patterns that may be unfamiliar to a younger songwriter.
Dale Ann Bradley
Storytelling with Songs
SUNDAY CONCURRENT SESSIONS
Matthew Sidney Parsons
This workshop will cover fundamental building blocks of songwriting. Craft, methodology, form, and generative strategies. Whether you’re new to songwriting or are looking to understand the craft better in order to replicate past successes, this workshop can provide invaluable tips, tricks, and foundational skills to make songwriting accessible and replicable.
Art of the Edit
The Rhythm of Purpose: Finding Your Voice in Songwriting
Faculty & Staff Bios
Dale Ann Bradley
Dale Ann’s story begins in rural Appalachia and ends on some of the biggest stages in music. Her music reflects that love as she often sings of the state’s multiple charms including sparkling streams, rolling hills and mountains, lush hillsides filled with native plants and beautiful landscapes. Born in Bell County, Kentucky, Dale Ann grew up in a tar and paper shack, under the guidance of her mother and father, a Primitive Baptist minister as well as a miner. When she was 14, she was given her first guitar. “It was a little plywood, small body guitar, but it had six strings, and I made a pick from a milk jug. I drove everybody crazy learning to play it.”
From those humble beginnings, Bradley has gone on to grac the Grand Ole Opry stage many times over, a dream of hers since she listened to the famous radio show on that old radio back home in Kentucky.
Bradley is a six-time winner of IBMA’s Female Vocalist of the Year 2021, 2012, 2011, 2009, 2008, 2007), and took home the Gospel Recorded Performance of the Year in 2021 for “After While.” In 2018, Dale Ann was inducted into the Kentucky Music Hall of Fame. “It was such an honor for me to be welcomed into the Kentucky Music Hall of Fame with so many of my heroes,” says Dale Ann. “Being a member of the Hall of Fame reiterated how important Kentucky stories and Kentucky artists are in the world of music,” says Dale Ann. “Receiving the award was such an honor.
Nicholas Jamerson
In the last ten years or so Nicholas Jamerson has put together a catalogue that reaches across broad spectrums in both substance and style. The eastern Kentucky native has endeared himself to fans in the region and beyond as a founding member of the duo, Sundy Best. In recent years Nicholas performed extensively solo and with his band The Morning Jays. Both with band and on his own Nicholas has made his mark on the most hallowed stages and events in the region, from the Grand Ole Opry and Ryman Auditorium to Americana and Master Musician Festivals. He is among an esteemed group of todays artists who have shaped, redefined, and expanded the notions of Appalachian and Southern music, and reminds people why they love it and enjoy its many splendors. Jamerson’s songs are known for their attention to the natural world, warm hearted characters, and the plight and triumphs of the modern day hillbilly
Matthew Sidney Parsons
Matthew S. Parsons is a poet, grammy-nominated songwriter, and educator from Kentucky. His work has been published in Rattle, Still, and 2River View, among others, and he holds an MFA in Creative Writing from EKU’s Bluegrass Writers Studio. A leading member of Whistle & Fish, he also tours as a solo artist with support from multi-instrumentalist Logan Cooper. Parsons lives on a family subsistence homestead in Olive Hill, Kentucky, with his wife and children.
Andrew Preston
Andrew Preston (aka A.p. Harbor) is a writer and producer from Van Lear, Kentucky. He has been a featured songwriter by the International Bluegrass Music Association, lecture faculty for the Appalachian Writer’s Workshop, and nominated for the 2020 Audioverse Awards. He has toured extensively across the US, the UK, Ireland, and China as a Kentucky music ambassador. When not making music, Andrew lives his other life as a bookseller at CoffeeTree Books in Morehead, Kentucky
Anna Kline
Anna Kline is a songwriter, musician, and poet based in Mt. Sterling, Kentucky. Her songwriting is rooted in the redemptive strains of gospel, the drawling tremolo of rhythm and blues, and the soul of American roots music. Her lyrics mirror the landscapes of her Mississippi upbringing and explore her kinship to the Appalachian Mountains, where she makes her home.
For over 15 years, Anna and her husband/songwriting partner, John Looney, have explored the musical legacies of the South with their bands, Grits & Soul and Swift Silver. They have released a recorded album with each band project. They have criss-crossed the Southeast performing at major festivals like MerleFest, Bristol Rhythm & Roots, Suwannee Springfest, and international festivals in Belgium and Ireland. Their music has been featured on ESPN’s True South and Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern.
Anna has contributed to numerous projects, including singing harmony on The Gospel by The Local Honeys, and sharing a co-writing credit on “Last Mule in the Holler” with Montana Hobbs. She has led songwriting workshops at Gateway Regional Arts Center in Mt. Sterling and led a youth version of “Finding Your Voice” at WMMT Girls Rock camp in Whitesburg. Her recent work as Business Development Director for the International Bluegrass Music Association included supporting artists and songwriters, and industry members in various stages of their careers.
Cody Lee Meece
Cody Lee Meece is one-of-a-kind. Any attempt at labeling will miss the mark, barring one… original. Cody is both a soulful songwriter and a dynamic entertainer. His influences run wide and deep, from Stevie Ray Vaughn and Jimi Hendrix to Roger Miller and Waylon Jennings, and all points in between. The Poor Excuses have a style all their own: 10-foot-tall-and-bullet-proof honky tonk rock. or, as they call it, “Raunchy Tonk”!
When Cody Lee Meece’s debut EP “The Break” won “Best Album” at the Lexington Music Awards, it was clear to those who knew him that his abundant talent would not be a secret much longer. He then won the Appalachian Arts & Entertainment Award for Best Guitarist. The following year, Cody Lee and the Poor Excuses won “Best Country Band”. Cody Lee Meece was recognized again in 2024 as a Lexi Nominee for “Country Act of the Year.” In June of 2024, Cody Lee Meece & The Poor Excuses released their first full-length studio album – Love Ain’t Worth The Trouble.
Doug Van Gundy
Doug Van Gundy is a nationally-known Appalachian musician who has performed and taught throughout the United States and in Canada and Great Britain. Doug learned music in his family, his hometown of Elkins, West Virginia, and from master musicians Mose Coffman (1905 – 1995) and Dwight Diller (1946 – 2023). In 2017, Doug was recognized as a Master Artist by the Folklife Program of the West Virginia Humanities Council. For the past 28 years he has been playing fiddle, guitar, mandolin, harmonica and banjo with Paul Gartner as the old-time string duo, Born Old.
Doug also directs the Low-Residency MFA program in Creative Writing at West Virginia Wesleyan College in Buckhannon, West Virginia. His poems, essays and reviews have appeared in dozens of journals, including The Guardian, Poets & Writers, Poetry, The Oxford American, and Guernica. He is co-editor of the anthology Eyes Glowing at the Edge of the Woods: Contemporary Writing from West Virginia (WVU Press) and the author of a book of poems, A Life above Water (Red Hen Press). His second poetry collection is forthcoming.
Local Lodging, Dining, and Attractions
Click here to download a PDF of local lodging, dining, and attractions near Hindman Settlement School.
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Hosted in partnership with the Culture of Recovery, a program of the Appalachian Artisan Center.
