The Beloved Community: Theme for the 2008 Festival

The theme for the 2008 Carolina Mountains Literary Festival is "The Beloved Community," a phrase made famous by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. as expanded by the distinguished Georgia novelist and short story writer Anthony Grooms. Writers and artists, Grooms believes, can and should play a vital role in advancing understanding, reconciliation and redemption among the nation’s many racial, ethnic and cultural interests.

At last year's festival we examined the American Revolution, which began the process of defining America’s civil rights and freedoms. In 2008 we will focus on the ways the country has been working to broaden that definition to include Native Americans, African Americans, people with other distinctive cultures such as found in Appalachia, women, and immigrants from all nations. This is an ideal which of course remains far from finished and cries out continually for more positive action, especially from the writers and artists whose highest responsibility is to invoke a contemplation of truth in an effort to heal historic trauma and nurture the beloved community.