The Sparta Store has carried Mountain Girl Press books for a while now.
Mountain Girl Press was formed to publish fiction that celebrates the wit, humor, and strength of Appalachian women. Their stories explore the relationships between mothers and daughters, sisters and friends, and the way they interact with each other.
Recently, Mountain Girl Press and publisher Tammy Robinson Smith, was featured in the Bristol Herald Courier‘s lifestyle insert, It’s all about HER:
It has become chic to be from Appalachia these days. The music is celebrated in major motion pictures, public television has produced several documentaries on Appalachian culture of late and crafts and storytelling draw thousands to our festivals and events.
Tammy Robinson Smith, author, publisher and Southwest Virginia native is immensely glad to see this trend. She describes her mission, as “telling the stories she loves about Appalachian women.”
Her own work, Emmybeth Speaks, debuted at the Southern Publishers and Writers Expo 5 and was nominated for the Appalachian Book of the Year award by the Appalachian Association,
She created Mountain Girl Press and is soon to launch Little Creek Books this summer. Mountain Girl Press produces and celebrates Appalachian literature, whlle Little Creek Books will represent authors and books from a more diverse base.
Smith graduated from East Tennessee State University with a B.S. in Broadcasting and Political Science and a M.A.T. in Secondary Education. After college, most of her professional experience In the region included public relations and broadcasting, but it was a job that had her promoting handmade Appalachian crafts that flrst piqued her interest specifically in Appalachian women.
She produced a video for Appalmade, a crafts consortium in Abingdon that introduced her to creative women in the region,
“I traveled throughout the area and met these groups of women who were bonding together as a community of women to support themselves.” Smith also had the example of her own mother and her sisters to draw from; That motivated her to finish a novel she had started earlier, which has the same theme of women banding together to help each other through a difficult time.
Having self-published Emmybeth Speaks, Smith set about promoting her novel. “I began to meet other local writers who had written books that maybe were never going to be published by Simon and Shuster but who had good stories.” Looking for her next project, she decided to become a publisher that would produce these works. Knowing she would be small, she had to select a niche and that became Appalachian women writing about Appalachian women.
So Mountain Girl Press was born. The first project The Zinnia Tales was a collection of Appalachian stories written by thirteen women from Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, and North Carolina, as well as Appalachian natives liVing in Wisconsin and Florida in 2006. The Zinnia Tales was nominated for a 2007 Appalachian Book of the Year award by the Appalachian Writers Association.
Other works quickly followed In 2007 and 2008. To date, Mountain Girl Press has produced eight books. Seeing the great wealth of writing talent in this region and beyond, In 2009 Smith decided to broaden her publishing base with the introduction of Little Creek Books.
Tammy Robinson Smith has been a student, a broadcaster, a marketer, an author and now a publisher- quite an impressive resume for anyone. When she speaks about the resourcefulness, tenacity and ‘grit’ of Appalachian women apparently she describes herself to a T.
Marsha Hedrick Miller/ Feature Writer
Bristol Herald Courier
We couldn’t agree more. Pick up a short story collection the next time you’re in The Sparta Store.
