Charleston’s Hillary Harrison selected as 2025 New River Gorge Creative-in-Residence

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Hillary Harrison of Charleston, West Virginia has been selected as the 2025 New River Gorge Creative-in-Residence. A writer and artist, Harrison will spend the entire month of January living and working at Lafayette Flats Boutique Vacation Rentals in downtown Fayetteville.

For the past ten years, Lafayette Flats Boutique Vacation Rentals has sponsored and hosted the New River Gorge Creative Residency, a program that supports the development of creative people by providing a unique opportunity for at least one creative person each winter to live and work on an artistic project at Lafayette Flats.

During the residency, Harrison has plans to work on several projects: Finishing a collection of short autobiographical stories, a photography project that will “capture the ephemeral nature of the locations chosen—places and spaces weathered by time, industry, and environmental changes,” and a series of profiles and interviews with people who identify as Daughters of Appalachia to be published online. 

Harrison grew up in a small town in WV and moved to Louisville, Kentucky where she majored in photography, found her people, and stayed for sixteen years. While there she published Bejeezus, a print magazine that began as a black and white zine and later became a full color, nationally distributed magazine, focusing on arts and culture in places outside of big cities. Harrison was one of the co-founders of the short-lived, but fondly remembered Butcher Block, an art gallery and DIY event space in Louisville’s Butchertown neighborhood. She co-founded the Kin Ship Gallery, which evolved into Kin Ship Goods—an independent brand she owns with her husband, dedicated to making life a little cozier for everyone.

“We are so very pleased to host Hillary for this year’s residency,” says Lafayette Flats co-owner Shawn Means, who with wife Amy McLaughlin, came up with the idea of hosting the residency in their vacation rental. “We look forward to reading her published works that we know will be in tune with our mission of providing an alternative narrative of contemporary West Virginia.”