For Westminster College Assistant Professor of English Dr. Robert Craven, Appalachia is more than an academic subject. It is home.

Both sides of Craven’s family come from the Appalachian working class, with roots in coal mining, timbering, steel and construction in western Pennsylvania and West Virginia. That family history has shaped his work as a scholar of American literature and culture and his interest in the distinctive stories of the region.

“It is fascinating to study a history that your own people lived through,” Craven said.

That history includes the development of mining communities, the cutting of the Appalachian forests, the arrival of plumbing, electricity and roads, the impact of the World Wars and the region’s rich traditions of folklore, music and literature.

Craven’s interest extends beyond the traditional image of Appalachia as a rural region defined by its mountains and forests. Northern Appalachia, he said, has another defining characteristic: its legacy of heavy industry.

“We here are Rust Belt and Appalachia,” he said.

That combination is particularly evident in the landscape of western Pennsylvania. A walk through the woods can reveal remnants of the region’s industrial past—old kilns, drills, pumps, derricks, furnaces, tailings and abandoned machinery.

“This mixture of rurality and industry fascinates me,” Craven said.

That intersection of place, history and culture also informs Craven’s teaching at Westminster. Many of his courses have a regionalist focus, and he wants students to recognize the literary contributions that have emerged from their own part of the country.

“I want my students to know that great writers have come from this region,” he said. “They can be great writers, too.”

Craven brought that perspective to the Writers Conference of Northern Appalachia’s (WCoNA) Writers in the Woods program Sept. 26 at the Sawmill Center for the Arts in Cooksburg, Pa. The daylong program featured workshops on writing, publishing, personal stories and the ways forests can inspire writers.

As one of the event’s instructors, Craven focused on the power of peer workshopping and critique groups. While workshops are often associated with college writing classes, he sees value in bringing adult writers—both professionals and enthusiasts—together to help one another improve.

“Magic happens when adult writers, professional and enthusiast, get together to critique one another’s work,” he said.

For Craven, effective critique is about more than simply receiving feedback. Writers need to learn how to offer criticism in productive and compassionate ways, how to receive it and, perhaps most importantly, how to determine which suggestions will strengthen their work and which should be left behind.

The regional focus of Writers in the Woods also aligns with Craven’s work as assistant poetry editor of Northern Appalachia Review, a literary arts journal that publishes contemporary Appalachian writers and is closely connected with WCoNA.

Craven believes creating opportunities for those writers is particularly important because writers outside major literary centers often have fewer opportunities for visibility, marketing and publication.

He also sees literature as a way to challenge the negative stereotypes that have long shaped perceptions of Appalachia.

“I admire many of our region’s writers for capturing a truer portrayal of the people of Appalachia,” he said.

Craven’s current scholarship continues to explore the region’s literary and cultural history. He is working on two book projects, including a scholarly book under consideration by the University of Tennessee Press that examines the idea of “Appalachian Modernism,” a cultural movement reflected in poetry, fiction and music created by Appalachians during the 1930s and 1940s.

His second project is a collaboration with Ohio photographer Adam Bernard. The multimedia book combines documentary poetry and photography to examine the aftermath of the 2023 East Palestine train derailment.

Craven, a 2013 graduate of Westminster, joined the faculty in 2022. He earned his master’s from Duquesne University and Ph.D. from the University of Oregon. He previously served as an instructor at the University of Oregon.

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