“[Discarded] is a talisman on the altar of rurality, a devotion to lineages of people who were and continue to be discarded. There is no group of people who are expendable, no matter who tries to rewrite them into an undeserving monolith. We are each other’s to take care of, each other’s to understand, each other’s to document.”

This guest blog is from RUX Artists Respond microgrant recipient Belle Townsend and reflects on their project, Backwoods Literary Press. Learn more at kyrux.org/microgrants/2024.

It was May of 2024, and I was at my first Kentucky Rural-Exchange (RUX) cohort intensive in Campbellsville, Kentucky. We were doing the Abundant Futures exercise, where small groups present ideas for projects to each other and have the opportunity to receive feedback from other group members. I had a half-baked idea that I wasn’t sure how to execute, much less present in conversation. But, I had an idea. So, I shared it.

I told my Abundant Futures group that I wanted to put together an anthology of diverse rural artists, and I wanted it to be super queer, although not exclusively. Through poetry, shared experiences, and a little help from the Tik Tok algorithm, I had found a community of rural artists across Kentucky, Appalachia, the South, and beyond. So many of our voices were in conversation with one another, yet we were often siloed by time, space, lack of opportunity, and power structures. I wanted to somehow document these voices in an effort to archive and expand commentary, perspective, and conversation on rural culture and politics— especially in the face of increased censorship and book bans. My group members validated my idea, offered support, and gave me some ideas of how to move forward.

The next RUX weekend intensive in Owensboro, Kentucky was where I had a conversation with a fellow cohort member about what a fiscal sponsorship under a non-profit looks like. She suggested a fiscal sponsor, and I took a shot in the dark and reached out to the organization. By the end of June, I had applied for my first grant for the project. By early July, I was awarded the grant and had garnered the very fiscal sponsor someone in RUX recommended.

When I was trying to figure out how to keep the momentum going, I found out about the Artists Respond: Community, Culture, and Commonality in the Commonwealth grant opportunity through RUX. By this point, I had advertised a submissions process and found a community to build the project with. Still, there were moving pieces I had my eyes set on that I wasn’t sure how to achieve. By early August, I found out I was a recipient of the Artists Respond grant. Quickly, those moving pieces came into perfect view. This wasn’t going to just be an anthology of rural voices, this was going to be a full-on literary press to reclaim, expand, and document narratives about rural and small towns and reservations.

After months of recruiting rural artists, editing, planning, and editing some more, the first book was done. Discarded, a rural anthology was published on October 16, 2024. With the reach of social media and some community hype, we sold out of our entire first print within the two week pre-order window. The book has continued to sell as quickly as we can restock, with libraries and bookstores across the United States requesting to carry it.

RUX was at the heart of the book, with several cohort members having their pieces published in the anthology. Even moreso, Kentucky was at the heart of the book, with the majority of contributors being from the Commonwealth. The community of artists I know is centered around Kentucky, so I knew it would skew heavily toward this state being represented. Still, it was important to me to include other states and geographical areas. In my experience with social media and having some videos go viral of me sharing my poetry about Kentucky, I received so many responses from people I did not expect. It wasn’t just Kentucky, the South, or Appalachia responding. It was people from rural Montana, Arkansas, Iowa– people who grew up hanging out in parking lots and traversing small-town culture just the same. So, I wanted for the anthology to encapsulate various rural and small-town experiences, but I did not want it to be small scale. Including other states would allow for a larger scale, broader conversation, and more opportunity for connection amongst the artists. The two editors supporting me and the project agreed, so that’s what we did.

In an effort to continue connecting these voices outside of print, the next phase of the project was building a website and social media where we spotlighted every contributing artist. These efforts were rooted in further validating these rural artists, many of whom had never been published or felt worthy of calling themselves artists. Additionally, these efforts were rooted in connecting the artists so they could see each other, their stories, and where they overlap. The artists were featured on our Instagram through our “Artist Spotlight” series, which garnered over 21k views across the posts. The artists were also featured on our website under the “Artists” tab. This opportunity to digitally highlight and connect artists allowed us to tell the story of Discarded, which over time has become the story of the full-on literary press: Backwoods Literary Press.

Since the publishing of the book and the digital highlight of the artists, the focus has been on in-person events across Kentucky. On October 12th, we were a vendor at Pikeville Pride as Backwoods Literary Press to talk to folks about the project and its importance with attendees. On October 13th, we joined Alight Arts Collective in their virtual “Help for the Heartland” open mic event to fundraise for hurricane relief in east Tennessee. We had six contributors from Discarded share their work, and the event overall raised $1,600.

The potluck spread at the *Discarded* launch party, Whitesburg, KY, November 15, 2024.

On November 15th, we had our official launch party for Discarded in Whitesburg, Kentucky at The Pond, a new queer arts collective run by a friend made through RUX. We had a beautiful potluck spread, including the classic soup beans and cornbread. As we sipped our Ale-8s, we had intimate readings and performances from five contributors to the anthology.

Most recently, we had a reading and panel at Lexington Public Library on November 23rd. We had five panelists who were all LGBTQIA2S+ people from Appalachian Kentucky. Each of these panelists read their piece in the book, and we had three additional readers from the book. Then, we had a rich panel where we discussed stereotypes vs. realities of rural folks, how rurality and queerness are in communication, and creating and documenting in the face of book bans and censorship. I moderated the panel, which included contributors Trish J. Gibson, Willie Carver Jr., Melissa Benson, Bayley Amburgey, and Sam Ratcliffe.

The *Discarded* panel conversation with contributors at Lexington Public Library, November 23, 2024.

We have an event planned at Surface Noise in Louisville, Kentucky on December 12th, which will feature at least eight artists featured in the book. These events serve to further platform and connect these diverse rural artists, but also to introduce these conversations into different places – from Pikeville, to Whitesburg, to Lexington, to Louisville. We are booked to April of 2025 with more readings and panels across Kentucky, Ohio, Tennessee, West Virginia, and more.

Discarded, a rural anthology highlights the rural experience, therefore inviting national and urban perspectives to interact with the opinions and experiences shared in the book. The publication in and of itself reclaims, expands, and documents narratives about rural and small towns and reservations. However, the expanded work of Backwoods Literary Press is to not only have conversations about this book and future publications, but to have layered, nuanced conversations through this book and future publications. This work is done through virtual and in-person events and through readings, panels, and performances. Documenting this digitally only further ensures urban and national access to these conversations, which facilitates a bridging of cultural understanding.

As I wrote in my introduction to Discarded, “This collection is a talisman on the altar of rurality, a devotion to lineages of people who were and continue to be discarded. There is no group of people who are expendable, no matter who tries to rewrite them into an undeserving monolith. We are each other’s to take care of, each other’s to understand, each other’s to document.”

It has been the greatest joy to bring these people, stories, and places together through Discarded, a rural anthology. Although, the work of Backwoods Literary Press has only gotten started. This project would not have been scaled up to what it is without the support, network, and perspective the Kentucky Rural-Urban Exchange has offered. I am so immensely grateful.
We look forward to opening submissions for our next anthology in spring of 2025. You can purchase your copy of Discarded, a rural anthology on our website and keep up with upcoming submission opportunities, events, and happenings on our Instagram.

-Belle Townsend

Backwoods Literary Press

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The road to "Discarded, a rural anthology" // Artists Respond Guest Blog

-Belle Townsend