An Article by Carolyn Bowen 

https://cmbowenauthor.com/

Fall is finally in the air and the autumn leaves are going through a kaleidoscope of colors in the North Georgia Mountains. Over the weekend we took in the sights and sounds of Canon, GA., the homestead of family and friends. We walked in the steps of many before us as we explored the remains of the historic town and were made privy to some of the best-kept secrets from the past. 

One of the outstanding sites continuing to operate was The Bowers House, a literary center for writers. This caught my attention and I wanted to more about the activities and offerings available. A call to Ellen Bowers Davenport, Manager and Treasurer at The Bowers House provided some fascinating details about the literary retreat and family history that lead to the opening of the residence for creatives. 

The Bowers House Writers Retreat and Literary Center is a grand historic home in a small northeast Georgia town. According to the spokesperson Ellen Bowers Davenport, “the residence offers a quiet environment away from the everyday things in life.” 

The residence was constructed in 1921 as a hotel when the railroad was active and cotton mills churned making Canon GA a leading producer of quality products for manufacturing. Located within walking distance of the mills, many cotton traders were regular guests at the hotel. With the invention of the motor car followed by the Depression, the hotel’s fate was sealed. Today the residence is active with writers taking advantage of the solitude to focus on creating their best works. There are opportunities to rent the property exclusively for creative use or overnight seminars and workshops. The old gardens surrounding the residence have plantings from around the world dating back from its beginning. Master Gardeners would have a field day on the historic site sorting through and identifying the plants and shrubs that have lived through the passages of time. The surrounds are farmland and rolling hills at the base of the Appalachians and near Lake Hartwell big water. 

Anne Pancake – Reading from her works, April 21 @7PM

438
author of “Creative Responses to Worlds Unraveling: The Artist in the 21st Century” (Fall 2013), and the novel, “Strange As This Weather Has Been (2007)

7 PM READING at THE BOWERS HOUSE WRITERS RETREAT

Ann Pancake—fiction writer, essayist, and environmental activist—will read from her work on Monday, April 21, at 7 PM, followed by a talk and short reception. Although Pancake currently lives in Seattle, Washington the West Virginia native’s writing, political efforts, and heart remain firmly focused in her home state, where the coal mining industry—in particular the highly controversial process of mountaintop removal—has both supported and devastated the populace in many areas.

Her first book was Given Ground (2000), a collection of short stories published as the winner of the Bakeless Prize. Pancake’s novel Strange As This Weather Has Been (2007) won the Weatherford Award, was a finalist for the Orion Book Award, and was named one of the top ten fiction books of that year by Kirkus Reviews. Wendell Berry termed this work “one of the bravest novels I’ve ever read.”

Pancake’s recent Georgia Review essay, “Creative Responses to Worlds Unraveling: The Artist in the 21st Century” (Fall 2013), worries the hows and whys of what a writer might do in the face of the huge complexities of environmental degradation: “I believe literature’s most pressing political task of all in these times is envisioning alternative future realities . . . a way forward which is not based in idealism or fantasy, which does not offer dystopia or utopia, but still turns current paradigms on their heads.”