Amy Le Ann Richardson - Author

06/17/2026

06/16/2026

I am so excited for our first Summer Writing Studio! If you know any young folks interested in creative writing, please share this. We’d love to have them join our writing community this summer! 💙

Not every young artist works with paint.

The Teen Writers Summer Studio is a week-long creative experience for students ages 12–17 who are interested in storytelling, poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, and visual arts.

Hosted by the Bloodroot Writers Collective, students will spend the week exploring creative writing alongside hands-on artistic activities, developing new ideas, building confidence, and connecting with other creative teens.

✍️ Ages 12–17
📅 July 13–17
📍 Rowan County Arts Center

Registration closes July 8.

Registration: https://pci.jotform.com/form/261385152944158

06/16/2026

Pull up a chair and join us on the front porch! 🌿

Front Porch Friday is a virtual making circle: a space to write, draw, stitch, brainstorm, work on a project, or simply spend time together in community. There’s no rigid agenda or pressure to be productive, just dedicated time to make something alongside other rural creatives and friends.

June 26 | 6:00–7:30 PM EDT | Virtual

This event is pay-what-you-can, with a suggested contribution of $10. If cost is a barrier, please don’t let that stop you from joining us. Reach out and we’ll gladly send you the registration link, no questions asked.

Bring your notebook, your mending pile, your sketchbook, your half-finished project, or just yourself. We’re saving you a seat on the porch! ♥️

Hosted by Amanda Jo Slone and Chaney Williams.

Register here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/1990484500724?aff=oddtdtcreator

06/15/2026

06/15/2026

🐝 We’re just tickled to announce the theme for the third annual Backwoods Rural Anthology: Practice.

Two years ago, we had no idea if anyone would submit to our first anthology. Since then, hundreds of rural writers and artists have trusted us with their work, helping build a publication that feels more expansive, complicated, and alive than we ever imagined.

This year’s theme explores practice in all its forms: learning, habit, devotion, labor, care, survival, repetition, and the ongoing work of making a life.

Submissions open July 1 and close July 31.

We especially encourage submissions that broaden understandings of rural life, including work from people whose experiences and perspectives are too often overlooked, flattened, or excluded from dominant narratives about rural life and rural communities.

Publication is anticipated for late fall/early winter 2026.

What does “practice” mean to you?

06/14/2026

It feels like full-blown summer! Loving all the richness of nature, including my first black raspberries of the year. So many beautiful blooms and fresh garden treasures. Love it all!

Last slide—check out my latest Substack for an update on what’s happened with Bloodroot Writers this past quarter and the exciting things coming up! 💙🫶

1. Upward view of daisies
2. Daisy
3. Black raspberries on the briar
4. Picked raspberries
5. Dandelion
6. Zinnia
7. Day lily (on the creebank 😉)
8. A portrait in shadow
9. Garden selfie
10. Lettuce & milkweeds
11. Bloodroot Substack update: https://substack.com/Amy Le Ann Richardson/note/p-201905311?r=1qfk2x&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=notes-share-action

06/14/2026

Gerry Dincher CC Sick Days at Mamaw’s Green daisy print. Corning ware. Corn. Wear. Pyrex. Measuring cup. Pour. Sizzle. Bake. Stir. Wait. Smoke break. Cigarette smoke. Porch. Talk....

06/14/2026

I did it!
Poetry Marathon Half ✅

What a day! I admire all y’all doing the full. Wow! 💙

06/13/2026

Growing Outward

06/13/2026

Join us November 12–14, 2026 at Kent State University for the Poets for Science Gathering!

The Wick Poetry Center at Kent State University invites all who share in the alliance of poetry and science to a gathering in Kent, Ohio. Wick Poetry Center

In our session, Malachite Daffodil and myself will talk about how documenting the lived experience of our community also documents the pressures of climate crisis:

MOUNTAIN SYSTEMS: Appalachian Writing, Climate, and Community Memory

Appalachian writers document landscapes under pressure through poetry and prose rooted in lived experience. Drawing on three anthology projects, this panel explores flooding, mountain foodways, and consumer culture as everyday expressions of environmental science. Centering voices of farmers, flood survivors, and community members, it examines storytelling as place-based science communication. These narratives preserve ecological knowledge, reveal the impacts of extraction and consumption, and illuminate how communities adapt and endure amid climate instability.

https://poetsforscience.org/session/mountain-systems-appalachian-writing-climate-and-community-memory/