WHERE THE OLD STORIES STILL BREATHE
An Anthology of Poetry from the Heart of Appalachia 
by the Dandelion Scribes

Coming August 15, 2026! 

Mark your calendars and come celebrate with the Scribes! Our book launch will be hosted by Historic Rugby 8/15/26 at the Rebecca Johnson Theatre (located in the Visitor Center at 1331 Rugby Pkwy, Rugby, TN 37733). The event will begin at 7pm. We will present a poetry reading featuring the anthology contributors, offer refreshments, and have the very first copies of the book for sale! Donations to Historic Rugby will be accepted at the door.

This 400-page community anthology is full to the brim with original poetry by poets local to our area in eastern TN & KY. With 25 chapters, including: 

1- The Hills Remember by Sheena Fry King
2- Nobody Knows Me Like I Do by Stephen Young
3- The Place of No Searching by Frances Denise
4- Metamorphosis by Jade Foster
5- Blossoming by Blair Correll
6- Creature Comforts by Kristen Reid
7- …And They Lived Happily Never After by Cari Lynne Wilson
8- This Past Year by Olivia Immitt
9- A Pattern Made Manifest by Kristian Obrusanszki
10- Ancient Alchemy by Amber Sparks
11- The Ouroboros is an Electric Eel by S.A. Phillips
12- Enchanted Music of the Subliminal Mind by Dane Osborne
13- happy plant by Nina
14- Seasons of the Mind by Olivia Gilreath
15- A Year in Appalachia as told by the Girl from Strawberry Plains by R. Clift
16- My Life As The World Fell Apart by Bobbie Jean
17- A Heroic Heart by Chris Boyatt
18- Pew Poems by Stephanie Duncan
19- Painful Bouts of Sobriety by Amethyst Drake
20- Radicals & Rye by Diona Marie Gwyn
21- Common Disasters and Other Ordinary Tragedies by Brandon Thorpe
22- Identity Crisis Solved by Cameron Lyric Cox
23- Awakening by Rhonda Kendziorski
24- Betrayal and Love by Angelia Ross
25- i exist in fragments by the dithyrambler

The anthology is named after the original poem “Where the Old Stories Still Breathe” by Olivia Gilreath. Cover photography by Stephen Phillips. Book design by Cheyanne Leonardo. Edited by Cheyanne Leonardo & Frances Denise.

THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS!
Our deepest gratitude goes out to the following folks & organizations whose contributions brought this book to life: Historic Rugby, Kara Kemp & The Bloom Stage, Sheena Fry King, Brandon Thorpe, Jimmy Barna of Big South Fork Brewing, Helga Kidder, Rhonda Kendziorski, Sharon Leonardo, Whitney Shirley, Madison Correll, Blair Correll, Lori Jones, Mellisa Pascale, Charles Thomas, & two Anonymous donors.

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More about the new book:

With 25 locally-based contributors who call our hills home, Where the Old Stories Still Breathe is an anthology of poetry from the heart of Appalachia, capturing a range of lived experiences and narrated by the holler-folk themselves. Some of us were born and raised here. Some of us found our way here from other places. Either way, in this present moment, our lives are intertwined with the land itself, and our souls speak as part of the ever-evolving story taking shape in these ancient mountains. 

Within these pages, we honor our history and the paths walked by our ancestors, all of whom led us here. And we record what will one day become history—keeping our spirits alive so that those who come after us will know from whence they came. Who we were. How we lived. Our faults & flaws, our beauty & brilliance, our struggles & losses, our triumphs & celebrations. What we got right. What we got wrong. How we survived the Appalachia we inherited, and what we wished to leave behind. These personal stories are more than poetry; they are myth—living & breathing, opening, rising, changing, and becoming. 

In this book, we borrow from the past and look toward the beyond. This is the place where the old stories still breathe. Thank you for reading—and remembering—with us.