2024 Persimmon Creek Residencies Conclude in Arrow Rock with
Brian Palmer Presentation and Byron Smith Remembrance

Persimmon Creek resident Brian Palmer presented and discussed his work on Saturday, June 22, 2024, in the Village of Arrow Rock. Speaking to a standing-room-only crowd at Historic Brown’s Chapel, Palmer covered topics including his photography career; his volunteer work restoring and advocating for Richmond, Virginia’s East End and Evergreen Cemeteries; and his stay in Arrow Rock, where he researched and photographed African-American burial sites in surrounding communities. Afterward, Brian answered questions about his career as a journalist, image maker, advocate, and citizen volunteer.

Tragically, renowned Missouri painter and 2024 Persimmon Creek resident Byron Smith passed away at his home in Columbia as he was preparing to attend the Persimmon Creek Residency. Smith was remembered and honored at the June 22 event, with six pieces of his artwork on hand, thanks to the kind efforts of Greig Thompson of the State Historical Society of Missouri (SHSMO). The evening began with a screening of SHSMO’s short film Byron Smith Paints the Center for Missouri Studies.

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Established in 2021, the Persimmon Creek Writers and Artists Residency is designed to bring emerging and established writers, artists, and musicians to live and work in historic Arrow Rock, located in Saline County, Missouri. The residency program was created by an advisory board of private citizens, including current and former inhabitants of Arrow Rock, Marshall, Columbia, and Kansas City, Missouri. In addition to hosting creative residents and supporting their work, the program hopes to introduce the Village of Arrow Rock to a wider national creative audience; recognize the historic presence of African American lives in Arrow Rock; and enrich present-day awareness of this one-time vibrant community. Currently, the program is funded by a grant from the Arrow Rock Improvement Committee and gifts from private donors. In addition, the residency;s advisory board works with the nonprofit Experience Arrow Rock to ensure future funding and resources.

“The first Persimmon Creek residents came to Arrow Rock almost exactly a year after Americans witnessed the horrific murder of George Floyd,” says advisory board member Myra Christopher, of Arrow Rock and Kansas City. “Residents of Arrow Rock, like people across the country, struggled to find what moral theologian H. Richard Niebuhr referred to as a ‘fitting response’ to this tragic event.” She adds, “To us, the mechanism for facilitating such conversations productively was via art, literature, and music created by African Americans or others deeply embedded in African American history and culture, including the scarred history of our own village. Each of our residents has brought something precious and have in a special way become integrated into the history of our community.”

In 2023, Persimmon Creek residents included novelist, memoirist and scholar Karla FC Holloway of Wake Forest, North Carolina, and writer, scholar and folkorist David Todd Lawrence of St. Paul, Minnesota. “Some months later, I must admit it feels like a magical interlude,” Holloway says, “until I look at the chapters—yes, plural!—I drafted while there. As much as it offers a community of engaging, interested readers and auditors, it will leave with you an inspired locale, a gathering of friends, and the unyielding sense of how and why art matters.” And she adds this warning: “Something of it—a place, a person, a scene, a gathering of irises or clutch of peonies—will quite likely slip into the project you bring, and it and you will be the better for it!”

In 2022, Persimmon Creek residents included writer and fiber artist Sonié Joi Thompson-Ruffin of Kansas City, Missouri, and poet, memoirist, and scholar Hermine Pinson of Williamsburg, Virginia. “One of the most fulfilling experiences of my career as an artist was my residency at Arrow Rock, where I had the privilege of immersing myself in the African American cultural scene,” Thompson-Ruffin says. “This comprehensive and enlightening experience was invaluable and has left a lasting impression on me.”

In 2021, the inaugural year of the program, Persimmon Creek residents included poet, activist, and educator Glenn North of Kansas City, Missouri, and fiction writer, memoirist, and zine creator X.C. Atkins of Los Angeles, California. “The main thing the Arrow Rock experience provides is a generous space, generous hosts, and a community of kind people who sincerely want you to make the most out of your time there,” Atkins says. “With the promise of uninterrupted solitude, I was able to write a good deal of short stories and enjoy my privacy while still having the option to enjoy the town and its historical perks.”

The Persimmon Creek Residency is inspired by the long-time presence of the historic African American community in Arrow Rock. The cottage in which participants reside stands in the footprint of the parsonage for Brown’s Chapel, founded in 1869 and home to the community’s Freewill Baptist Church. “As a native Saline Countian with direct ties to Black descendants of Arrow Rock and nearby Pennytown, I am profoundly proud of the work that has been and is currently being done to shine a positive light on contributions and impact African Americans had on this area,” says advisory board member Clarence Smith, of Kansas City. “Persimmon Creek reinforces my desire and need to embrace the importance of teaching, preserving, and celebrating African American history. In the current climate where omitting and distorting history is being commanded, the work so many of us are doing with Persimmon Creek is of extreme importance.”

The Persimmon Creek Residency takes its name from the 1938 children’s novel Persimmon Creek, written by Marshall author and native Nellie Page Carter. Designed for young readers across races, the book tells the story of two Black children who visit their grandmother in a settlement near Arrow Rock. It was the first of Carter’s four novels, and the author based her work on three years of research in Arrow Rock. As a result, Persimmon Creek offers a rare glimpse into the village’s historic African American community, and it reflects important Black landmarks, including Brown’s Chapel, Brown Lodge, the Black schoolhouse, and Whittie’s Over East restaurant and dance hall.

For additional information about the Persimmon Creek Writers and Artists Residency and its 2024 residents, please scroll through the pages of this website or visit our Instagram page.

Questions? Feel free to contact Program Director Nancy Blossom: persimmoncreekresidency@gmail.com