A Return to the Cove (and a Table Full of Paper Dreams)

There are places that live in your bones whether you intend them to or not.

For me, it’s the stretch of road that bends toward Cades Cove—that quiet, almost reverent unfolding of field and mountain that never quite looks the same twice, and yet somehow never changes at all.

On Friday, April 24, from 10 AM to 3 PM, I’ll be there—well, just outside it—on the grounds of the Cades Cove Museum for a craft fair, book signing, and sale.

And if you’re wondering why a museum hosts a craft fair in the first place: it’s both practical and a little poetic. Events like these bring people in, keep the lights on, and quietly ensure that the stories held in those buildings—stories of families, land, and long memory—don’t slip through the cracks. Publicity helps. Funding helps more. Showing up helps most of all.

The Long Way Back

I grew up passing through Maryville on the way to the mountains, though “passing through” isn’t quite right.

It’s where my parents were married. It’s where my husband proposed—at the same church, because apparently we are nothing if not consistent in our sentimentality.

And beyond it, always, the pull of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

Summers meant camping with the Pathfinders at Lazy Daze in Townsend—a place that felt, even then, like a threshold between the everyday and something older. We’d bike through the Cove until our legs gave out, or until someone spotted a deer and the entire group decided that was reason enough to stop and stare like we’d never seen one before.

Even now, years later, something shifts the moment I turn onto those roads. It’s not nostalgia, exactly. It’s sharper than that. A kind of recognition.

Like the mountains remember me back.

Paper, Thread, and a Little Stubbornness

I’ve had a series of children’s stories—Appalachian “princess” tales—rattling around in my head for a while now. They’re stubborn things. They refuse to be rushed, which is inconvenient but probably correct.

One day, they’ll make their way into the world. For now, though, I’m starting somewhere quieter.

At the craft fair, I’ll be releasing my first poetry chapbook—a small, handmade collection rooted in this region and the way it has shaped me. First editions of chapbooks tend to be a little different from the books you order online without thinking. They’re often limited, assembled by hand, imperfect in the best possible way.

This one is no exception.

It’s been a labor of love—mine in the words, my husband’s in the artwork. Between us, we’ve managed to produce something that feels less like a product and more like an object you happened to come across and decided to keep.

Eventually, I’ll make it available more broadly. But not yet.

The Analog Gamble

For now, I’m doing this the old way.

No preorders. No “link in bio.” No quiet warehouse waiting to ship copies across the country.

If you’re at the craft fair, you’ll find it. If you’re not, you’ll miss this particular version of it—the handmade, first-run edition that smells faintly of ink and effort.

There’s something honest about that. A little inconvenient, maybe. But honest.

If You’re Passing Through

If you’re already planning a trip to the mountains, or if you need an excuse to take the long way somewhere, come by.

Walk the grounds. Support the museum. Pick up something made by hand. Stay longer than you meant to.

I’ll be there with a small stack of chapbooks, probably rearranging them more often than necessary, trying to look like I expected any of this.

And if nothing else, you’ll get to stand at the edge of the Cove for a moment—and remember, or discover, what it feels like when a place refuses to let you go.