Hilliard Institute Doings 2022–2023

Power of Words Festival

The Hilliard Institute’s Rosemary J. Hilliard and Jessa R. Sexton attended and presented at the Power of Words Festival in Abbeyleix, Ireland, mid-August 2023.

The Power of Words Festival celebrates words expressed through written, spoken, acted, and sung communication. Set in a town surrounded by and built off its rich heritage, this festival gives a deeper look into the meaning of language.

Sexton’s sessions were on poetry and writer’s block. Sexton and Hilliard held a conversational interview on the editor and writer relationship.

Book Tour

The Crowdancing and the Cherokee Storyteller’s Bag Ireland-American Book Tour 2022-23 began with its first stop in Tennessee on Wednesday, October 26, 2022, at the Jellico Public Library.

Other stops included the Mildred G. Fields Memorial Library in Milan, Tennessee, in November 2022; the Anna Porter Public Library in Gatlinburg on December 1st; and the Spring Hill Public Library in February 2023.

Cherokee Missions

We have continued our non-profit partnership with Cherokee Missions in Cherokee, North Carolina, at the Cherokee Church of Christ on the Cherokee Indian Reservation. This church started in the 1940s, and in 1998, Dr. Hilliard lived and worked on the reservation while conducting research for his doctoral dissertation on teaching and learning styles of the Eastern Band of the Cherokee. Dr. Hilliard’s interest in this culture and this church began as a youth when his father led mission work there. The Hilliard Institute also raises all the financial support for a full-time ministerial couple, who live and work on the reservation.