JMU professor receives fellowship supporting Black Appalachian storytelling 

A James Madison University English professor who works in leadership at the Furious Flower Poetry Center has received a fellowship from an association that promotes Black storytelling in the Appalachian region.

L Renée, assistant director of the Furious Flower Poetry Center, received a Black Appalachian Storytelling Fellowship from the National Association of Black Storytellers.

The fellowships are awarded to one storyteller in each of six states in the Appalachian region: Kentucky, Ohio, North Carolina Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia.

“I am humbled to receive this fellowship, which will provide research support to further examine and document the rich histories of Black Appalachian storytelling in Virginia specifically in Tazewell County where my family lived,” said L. Renée.

The fellowship provides $5,000 to support L. Renée’s work as a Black Appalachian storyteller and culture bearer, and funds for travel and lodging at the 41st annual “In the Tradition…” Black Storytelling Festival and Conference in Salt Lake City in November.

The award aims to recognize artistic excellence in the representation of folk art and cultural heritage.

She is the descendant of “coal miners, tobacco farmers, bakers, washerwomen, bathtub brewers, guitar-pickin front porch dwellers and Bible quoters who labored and loved in hills and hollers,” said L. Renée.

“Storytelling is the way they, and so many other Black folk, have passed down knowledge, wisdom, and spiritual testimonies,” L. Renée said. “In the spirit of Sankofa, this tradition must be preserved especially in Appalachian regions where the lives, contributions, and experiences of Black communities are often missing from or incompletely represented by ‘official’ archives.”

The NABS Black Appalachian Storytellers Fellowship is made possible through partnerships and funding in part by Mid Atlantic Arts’ Central Appalachia Living Traditions Program and South Arts as part of the In These Mountains, Central Appalachian Folk Arts and Culture.

This second-year fellowship is an adjudicated award recognizing artistic excellence in the representation of folk art and cultural heritage.