Award-Winning Poet Terry Rae Hall Finds Space to Write in Bath County

For years, AMR listeners knew Amanda McGuire as the WCHG news reporter here at Allegheny Mountain Radio. Since leaving the station, McGuire has remained connected to the arts in Bath County as the founder of the Red House Residency at Sycamore Bend Farm in Millboro.

The residency gives women artists and writers two weeks away from the demands of everyday life to concentrate on their work, while also giving something back through workshops, readings and other public programs.

This month, that artist is Virginia poet Terry Rae Hall.

Hall lives in Staunton and is the author of the 2024 chapbook The Something We Make from Nothing. Her newest collection, Neither Are Crows, was selected as the winner of the 2025 Laura Boss Narrative Poetry Award and published by NYQ Books earlier this year.

But when Hall joined me at WCHG, I wanted to start somewhere well before the awards and publications.

She studied English at William & Mary and later continued her education at Mary Washington. She’s accomplished a lot in poetry, but all of it had to start somewhere.

CARDWELL: “Tell me about the beginning.”

For Hall, that beginning goes all the way back to elementary school.

HALL: “I probably started writing in second grade. First grade was where I learned how to read, and once I learned to read, there was no turning back. I still have two books that I wrote in the second grade.”

Those early stories were modeled after the work of Laura Ingalls Wilder. By third grade, Hall had discovered poetry.

She remembers her teacher, Mrs. Goldsmith, having the class write poems and putting them together in a mimeographed booklet. That same year, Hall found Helen Ferris’ anthology of poetry for children in the library and asked her parents for a copy for Christmas.

HALL: “For me, that was the first time I ever realized that you could have, for your very own, a book that you found in the library.”

Hall has been writing poetry ever since.

Her influences, though, don’t stop with books. She told me music remains a major part of her creative life, particularly the work of singer-songwriters, and she also draws inspiration from visual art.

For Hall, that ability to draw connections between different subjects is part of what she values about a liberal arts education.

She took creative-writing courses at William & Mary, but looking back, Hall said those early classes also taught her something about what was missing from her writing.

HALL: “I was too cautious, and I was not confident enough to write with honesty. The work I submitted to class was two or three steps removed from something that was real and authentic.”

By the time Hall reached graduate school at Mary Washington, more life experience — and more confidence — had begun to change that.

And you can hear the result in her work.

Hall writes about memory, family and complicated relationships. Some of that territory can get heavy. During our conversation, I asked her what it’s like to pull that generic layer off, get down deeper and expose that much of herself on the page.

HALL: “I joke with my family that, as well as they think they know me, the people that read my poetry may know me better.”

She said there are experiences she allows herself to process through poetry that she doesn’t necessarily talk about with the people closest to her.

HALL: “I’ve come to understand that writing about those things is essential to living through those things, and that’s how I make meaning of my experience.”

That willingness to tell a story honestly is central to Neither Are Crows.

The Laura Boss Narrative Poetry Award recognizes a manuscript written in the narrative poetry form. Hall doesn’t claim a textbook definition of narrative poetry. Her explanation is much simpler.

HALL: “For me, I think of it as a poem that tells you a story, more so than a poem that just presents artistic images.”

And Neither Are Crows doesn’t just contain individual narrative poems. Hall said the collection itself tells a larger story.

The book draws on Dorothy Gale, the central character in The Wizard of Oz, using elements of Dorothy’s experiences as a filter through which Hall examines some of her own family dynamics.

Getting that collection into print was anything but instantaneous.

We live in a time where we hear a lot about overnight success, but the truth is, there are usually a lot of cold nights before anybody sees the success.

Hall told me she actively worked on Neither Are Crows for about eight years and estimates she submitted the collection to publishers and literary competitions around 70 times.

There was rejection — a lot of it — but every once in a while there was enough encouragement to keep going.

HALL: “Just often enough, you would get a response back that says, ‘We really like this collection. Here’s what we liked about it. It just wasn’t quite what we were looking for right now.’”

For Hall, those responses were enough to keep the manuscript out of the drawer.

Eventually, persistence met opportunity.

More than 200 manuscripts were submitted for the 2025 Laura Boss Narrative Poetry Award. Hall’s Neither Are Crows was selected by final judge Joe Weil as the winner. The award included $5,000, publication by NYQ Books, 25 author copies and a featured publication reading. Neither Are Crows was released April 3, 2026.

Now Hall is spending part of September writing in Bath County.

Her connection to this area actually predates the Red House Residency.

Several years ago, Hall attended a week-long writers’ retreat at Nimrod Hall. She remembered finding Bath County beautiful, inspiring and just far enough removed from her everyday life to offer a different perspective.

So when she learned about McGuire’s Red House Residency along the Cowpasture River, the opportunity made sense.

HALL: “I thought that would be a great setting for me, providing an opportunity for a two-week stay to really let go of the daily demands and just think about the writing.”

Hall’s residency runs from August 31 through September 14, and her time here will include two public appearances with the Bath County Arts Association at The BEAR in downtown Hot Springs.

On Sunday, September 6, from 2 until 3 p.m., Hall will read from Neither Are Crows. The program also gives those attending an opportunity to hear more about the poems and her writing process. Admission is $10, light refreshments are included, and preregistration is required.

Hall returns to The BEAR on Sunday, September 13, from 2 until 4 p.m. for a workshop titled “Word, Image, Sound: the Pieces that Make a Poem.”

HALL: “There’ll be three or four different activities that we do that will allow every participant to leave the workshop with some original works and to have some tools that help them access their creative imagination.”

The September 13 workshop is free and open to ages 10 and older, although seating is limited and preregistration is required. Participants should bring, or have electronic access to, a photograph that includes themselves.

Terry Rae Hall’s Neither Are Crows is available now from NYQ Books.