West Virginia Poet Laureate Marc Harshman gives the Scarborough Lecture in the Robert C. Byrd Center on Sept. 26. Tabitha Johnston

SHEPHERDSTOWN — West Virginia Poet Laureate Marc Harshman gave a lecture on the “Poetry All Around Us,” after accepting the 2024 Appalachian Heritage Writer’s Award in the Robert C. Byrd Center for Congressional History & Education on Sept. 26.

For Harshman, the award was one of many he has received for his literary accomplishments over the years, including from the Smithsonian Institution, the Children’s Book Council, the Parents’ Choice Foundation, the Junior Library Guild and the Weatherford Awards. He has also received a number of fellowships, including the West Virginia Arts Commission Fellowship in Poetry in 2000, the Fellowship in Children’s Literature in 2008 and the Ezra Jack Keats/Kerlan Collection Fellowship from the University of Minnesota. And yet, for Harshman, the Appalachian Heritage Writer’s Award proved to be incredibly meaningful to him.

That may have been largely due to the award’s connection with one of his friends, Sylvia Bailey Shurbutt, who founded the Appalachian Heritage Writer in Residence program. Shurbutt, who retired as the director of the Shepherd University Center for Appalachian Studies and Communities at the end of the last school year, made the trip from her home in Georgia to present the award.

“Hanging around with Marc for the last week and working with him over the past year has been such a joy!” Shurbutt said, before noting that, from now on, each Appalachian Writer in Residence will be selected by her successor, Ben Bankhurst. “I’ve always wanted to go out with a bit of a blast! Doing so with Marc has been a joy for me.”

Shurbutt noted that Harshman’s relationship with her former program began nearly two decades ago. Harshman’s work has appeared in every edition of the Anthology of Appalachian Writers since 2006.

West Virginia Poet Laureate Marc Harshman presents the second prize in the West Virginia Fiction Competition to Kearneysville resident Jane Ellen Freeman in the Byrd Center on Sept. 26. Tabitha Johnston

“As I often say here, I’m not sure you’re clearly aware of what a role Sylvia plays in the field of Appalachian Studies,” Harshman said. “There’s nowhere, from north Georgia to the Catskills, that’s not aware of Sylvia’s role in defining the direction and supporting Appalachian Studies throughout the region. And, of course, the work she does here for the Appalachian Writer in Residence program is quite remarkable, and the list of her alums — of which I am very proud to be one now — is more than impressive.”

West Virginia Poet Laureate Marc Harshman presents the first place award in the West Virginia Fiction Competition to Shepherdstown resident D.W. Gregory in the Byrd Center on Sept. 26. Tabitha Johnston