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    

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