Appalachian Flooding in Fact and Fiction

About this event

@ In “Appalachian Flooding in Fact and Fiction,” Nico Zegre, Ph.D., explores how floods work, what flooding looks like in Appalachia, and why floods are changing. He will discuss how the region’s steep topography, narrow valleys, and limited flat land for development contribute to significant flood risks, as well as how flooding connects Appalachian communities through space and time. Literary scholar Jessica Cory, Ph.D., examines representations of flooding in Appalachian literature, from early works to contemporary depictions in twenty-first-century texts, including the recent anthologies Had I a Dove: Appalachian Poets on the Helene Flood, edited by Hilda Downer, and Troublesome Rising: A Thousand-Year Flood in Eastern Kentucky, edited by Melissa Helton. Through mapping literary floods across the region, Cory explores how water connects us, even in disastrous ways. This event is free and open to the public; however, registration is encouraged. Register Here “Appalachian Flooding in Fact and Fiction” is the third event in the “Rising Waters: Writing Place and Environment” Thomas Howerton Professorship lecture series presented by the UNC Asheville English Department. This three-year series features humanities scholars in conversation with natural sciences scholars about issues affecting us all. Jessica Cory Jessica Cory, Ph.D., is a settler scholar and the editor of Appalachian Journal: A Regional Studies Review, published since 1972 at Appalachian State University. She holds a PhD in Native American, African American, and environmental literatures from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and is also the editor of Mountains Piled upon Mountains: Appalachian Nature Writing in the Anthropocene (WVU Press, 2019) and the co-editor (with Laura Wright) of Appalachian Ecocriticism and the Paradox of Place (UGA Press, 2023). Her chapbook, Disposable, was published in 2026 with Sheila-Na-Gig editions. Cory’s scholarship and creative writing have appeared…