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Our conversation this week is with Dawn Gilchrist, devoted teacher, marvelous writer, attender to words, and advocate for social change in her home of Western North Carolina.

"What possibilities lie dormant that can be teased out if I can figure out what engages their mind?” This sums up Dawn's life and career. In every single human story she sees shared humanity. She wonders about people and attends to their words when they decide to share who they are. There's no limit to the impact of a teacher who pays attention to their students. Dawn knew this and knows this still -- the power of curiosity. The depths of a single human story. 

In this episode you'll listen to Dawn talk about words as bridges, what happens when we get to know someone we think we hate, seeing and listening to students, and the awesome power of books to change lives. You'll also hear us discuss our "personal canons" with some fun commentary on Willa Cather, 'Deadwood', and 'The Good Lord Bird'. 

Dawn wins the Normal Mailer Writing Award for High School Teachers

Dawn's writing for Smoky Mountain News

Mentioned in this episode:

William Shakespeare, Sonnet 73

My Antonia by Willa Cather

The Professor's House by Willa Cather

The Danger of a Single Story by Chimimanda Ngozi Adichie

Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin

Rubyfruit Jungle by Rita Mae Brown

Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem

The Marrow of Tradition by Charles Chesnutt

To 'Joy My Freedom by Tera Hunter

The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Conversations with Toni Morrison

27 by Blue Scholars

Marie Junaluska

Cherokee National History Museum

Confederate Monument in Sylva, North Carolina

Appalachian Women's Museum

Wautaga Mound - Mainspring Conservation Trust

tour de bookshop Etsy page

On Writing Well by William Zinsser

One Writer's Beginnings by Eudora Welty

Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward

Dispatches from Pluto by Richard Grant

The Moviegoer by Walker Percy

The Optimist's Daughter by Eudora Welty

The Second Coming by Walker Percy

So Long, See You Tomorrow by William Maxwell

Barn Burning by William Faulkner

The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy

I Am Charlotte Simmons by Tome Wolfe

Jane Austen

Postcards by Annie Proulx

The King James Bible

Deadwood

Heavy by Kiese Laymon

The Good Lord Bird by James McBride