By Claire Sketch
On a recent Thursday night, walking into the back room of the Roebling Coffee & Books in Newport, I find a circle of chairs framed by shelves of colorful books. Tables lined with items folks brought xconnecting them to place serve as focal points. Stones, a feather, pawpaws in a wooden bowl, bloomed flowers, fallen leaves, a braid of sweetgrass. I am here for the creative workshop Land Matters, part of the Urban Appalachian Community Coalition’s Woven Branches Series. Created by UACC Core Member Sherry Cook Stanforth and Michael Thompson, Woven Branches aims to help cultivate creative community through a series of programs ranging from open mics to workshops like this one, an all-day Ohio River retreat to an art and writing meditation inspired by a new mural-in-the-making. Both Sherry and Michael have extensive experience in organizing and facilitating creative, accessible, community-focused events.
The Urban Appalachian Community Coalition sponsors the Woven Branches workshops, retreats, arts demos, open mics, and public celebrations in partnership with Originary Arts Initiative and Roebling Books & Coffee. Through generous support from ArtsWave’s Northern Kentucky Creative Placemaking Grant, the year-long series aims to spark heritage interest and intergenerational collaboration among diverse writers and visual artists. The Roebling creative workshops are free, with donations appreciated. No registration necessary allows people to simply show up as they are to experience powerful group reflection around the session theme, with time to invent and share. The theme of the evening I am describing centers around land. As the event starts, people scramble to bring in more chairs to accommodate last minute arrivals. The room brims with people and that kind of nervous energy that often accompanies the start of things. Sherry Cook Stanforth welcomes us and speaks on the intentions of the night: to cultivate creative community, to plant seeds, to have time to reflect and share with each other.
“This road to home is changing all the time,” Sherry sings, unfurling a collage of contemporary and traditional Appalachian song lyrics, with some originals woven in. Woven Branches also aims to include younger adult collaborators who add their talent and interpretations to the program and tonight is no different. Many introduce themselves, all offering thoughtful and detailed prompts for us to work with. Then, the invitation to share one sentence about a cherished memory of home inspires stories so vivid it is easy to imagine others’ place experiences as if they were your own.
Given time to spread out throughout the bookstore, the group splits off, spilling outside to tables and cozy corners to work on our prompts. Before settling in, people exchange hellos and examine the “museum of objects” that lines the tables. I smell pawpaws for the first time in my life and am still shocked at their sweet freshness. I have trouble settling myself to write. One prompt invites you to reflect on the physical and sensory details of a place experience, to truly root into the memory. I end up writing about being stuck in traffic on I-75 South on my drive home from work. It is not a place I would really think about otherwise, except in frustration, wishing the time away. I spool out bits of my experience. I wonder if this will make me think of my drives differently, if it will offer new ways for me to pay attention to my life, even the least glamorous parts of it.
When we come together to share, I am surprised that every single person in the room participates. I have been to a fair share of workshops and creative programs, and usually there are at least a few people that don’t want to speak. I think everyone’s active participation speaks to the inventive and low risk environment Sherry Cook Stanforth and Michael Thompson work to create. People sense acceptance and belonging, where each voice is valued and encouraged, allowing attendees to engage in creative storytelling and active listening. Every experience shared is vast and yet interconnected: a list of places that don’t feel like home, a memory of someone else, a made-up apartment from a mouse’s perspective, the hollers of childhood, a blind contour drawing of a home, a cat sitting on a lap after a trip, dogs being home, the way having child was grounding for a couple that never felt like they fit in. Grief is shared, the impact loss has on place and identity, the complexities that come with what was once familiar becoming strange, tinged by sorrow. We sit together, each of us given the space to process, to allow each experience shared to be true and in the room.
Looking at Roebling Bookstore’s blue painted concrete floors, I am reminded of the color my front porch was growing up. I am thinking a lot of the place of this moment, this specific gathering of people, this particular Thursday evening in September, the light of the sunset coming in soft from the small windows of the green garage door, the willingness of every single person to share themselves. I carry with me a palpable feeling of what we’ve woven together collectively.
All are invited to join in future Woven Branches programs which include:
Thursday, January 8, 2026, 6-8 pm – Woven Branches “Animal Spirit” creative workshop at Roebling Books & Coffee, 601 Overton Street, Newport, KY
Thursday, February 19, 2026, 6-8 pm – Place Keepers Wide Open Mic at Roebling Books & Coffee Newport with featured guests, TBA
Thursday, March 12, 2026, 6-8 pm – Woven Branches “Kinship Ties” creative workshop at Roebling Books & Coffee Newport
March TBA 2-5 pm – Northern Kentucky Equinox Celebration at Baker Hunt Arts and Cultural Center — a public festival-style gathering with creative literary readings and spoken word, live arts demos, music, and heritage food
Claire Sketch is a writer from Covington, Kentucky. Her degrees in French and Film solidified her love of language, storytelling, and creative expression. She primarily writes poetry and prose in which she explores identity, connection, nature, and transformation. She is starting a craft project she will definitely finish.