Workshop: Conversation with Your Ancestors Workshop with Pauletta Hansel

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.

Author Bios: 

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…