Gretchen Griffith loves the stories of the Foothills — the legends, characters, and folklore. The histories she has written about the area tell tales of moonshiners fleeing revenuers, nascent stock car drivers racing on the drag strips and circle tracks of Caldwell County, and fly-fishing on Wilson Creek and throughout western North Carolina. Biographies of the people in her community are also part of her repertoire. Her prominence as a raconteur has lured locals to the door of her home in Gamewell to ask her to write their stories.

Griffith is a member of Foothills Writers, eight or so wordsmiths who meet each Wednesday in nearby Lenoir to share their love of putting pen to paper.

Stefanie Hutcheson and another local writer started the group several years ago — no one remembers exactly when. The two had been attending a writing workshop in Charlotte and after it ended, Hutcheson posted an announcement in the main branch of the Caldwell County Library looking for other writers who shared her love of words and the Foothills. “We thought, we don’t want this to stop; we’ve already devoted our Wednesdays to writing,” she says. Since then, the group has grown by word of mouth and with the help of social media.

Foothills Writers members (from left) Tom Blanton, Kathy Lyday, Stefanie Hutcheson, Lucy Wilkes, Gretchen Griffith, Michael FitzGerald, and Karin Davidson find inspiration and kinship in western North Carolina. photograph by David Uttley

Each meeting at the Mulberry Recreation Center in Lenoir starts like a party — with snacks and socializing. Once everyone finds their seats, one member shares a prompt, and the writers have six minutes to come up with a short response. Prompts range from the serious — “Where were you on 9/11?” — to the whimsical — “If you were a punctuation mark, which would you be and why?”

When the six minutes are up, members share what they’ve written and listen attentively to each other’s work. They’ve even been known to break into song if a certain line reminds them of a tune.

After writing and discussing the group’s responses, the same member leads a discussion on a topic, which might be grammar, a specific genre, a style of poetry — anything related to writing.

Carol Starr finds these exercises therapeutic. She tends to write about her family and the meetings have become the only time that she writes since the recent loss of her brother.

Listening isn’t the only way that members support each other. They also show up to each other’s open-mic poetry readings at local businesses and organizations like the HUB Station in Hudson or The Highland Thistle Bed and Breakfast in Lenoir, owned by Karin Davidson, who joined Foothills Writers in 2023. She says knowing that the group is there for her has helped her muster the courage to take the stage and read her work. “You’re nervous and you’re stressed out,” Davidson says, “and all you gotta do is look at [the group members], and Stefanie just smiles at you, and you’re like, ‘OK, I got this.’ ”

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Together, Foothills Writers have published four anthologies — each titled Our Foothills — that include poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. Many of the pieces depict the writers’ love of life in western North Carolina.

“After living in three states and now living in my eleventh county in North Carolina, I find myself at home in the Foothills where I belong …,” writes Thomas Blanton — who’s also written two novels under the pen name Thomas Ballantine — in the first volume. “I intend to spend the rest of my life here. This is home.”

In Volume III, Lucy Wilkes, who moved to the area from Florida, writes, “We were captivated by the charm of the foothills of the mountains with their changing views every day, and each time of the day. The people in this area were friendly, saying good morning, and willing to help in any way they could — even asking for directions or giving help with the car that time it got stuck when we turned around off the road.”

The friendliness of Foothills residents is a common refrain. In Volume IV, Griffith writes of Gamewell, “When my husband and I first became a part of the community, we were one of the few couples not born and raised here — still are. Yet I have been invited into the circle and welcomed by the longtime inhabitants. Their backstories fascinate me … The history of this area is as rich as any I’ve ever heard.”

The Foothills Writers publish their favorite pieces in anthologies of volumes entitled Our Foothills. photograph by Matt Hulsman

Topics covered in the anthologies range from the dancing usher at Hickory Crawdads baseball games to local restaurants like JD’s Smokehouse in Lenoir to celebrated Foothills folk singer Doc Watson and the beauty of nature. “I am so grateful to have these lovely [white pine] trees spreading their soft feathery needles over my special piece of heaven,” writes Starr in Volume III. She moved to Hudson from her native northern Canada, where the trees never grew more than 20 feet tall. With the Blue Ridge Mountains so close by, Starr and the other members often write about hiking trails like Fonta Flora State Trail in Burke County, and winding roads, like Buffalo Cove Road in Caldwell County.

Kathy Lyday, who mostly writes short stories, brings her sense of humor in the form of a limerick: “There once was a group from Lenoir/Who needed a little bit more./So they sat down to write/And tried not to fight/As they worked on Anthology IV.”

“Fight” may be a strong word, as members try to provide positive critiques of each other’s works. But editing sessions have been known to get heated. For example, the group has yet to come to a consensus on use of the Oxford comma.

Heated debates or no, all agree that the group helps make them better writers. Hutcheson explains that some members are stronger in grammar, others in mechanics, and then there are those who just have a good ear for determining whether something sounds like the way people talk in the Foothills.

“It’s kind of fascinating to say, ‘Carol, why don’t you try this’ or ‘Lucy, I really like this, but I don’t like this,’ ” Michael FitzGerald says. “And people listen and sometimes they come back with a much-improved version a week later.”

Hazy sunrises over towns like Morganton are familiar scenes in the group’s four anthologies, each of which bears the same simple title: Our Foothills. photograph by alex grichenko/iStock/Getty Images Plus

The members also inspire each other to create things that they wouldn’t normally come up with on their own. The weekly prompts give Griffith an opportunity to write outside of her niche. The group also encouraged her to pen her memoir, something she had always wanted to do.

And each member brings his or her own writing personality to the group. Griffith is the local historian; Blanton writes fiction and about religion; Starr — the group’s “haiku queen” — likes to write about nature.

As the crew works on individual projects, they don’t plan to put out any more anthologies. They’ve got their sights set on other goals — like teaching workshops, so they can share with others what they’ve learned on their own writing journeys. But they won’t stop writing. There are still plenty of stories about the Foothills just waiting to be told.

To learn more about Foothills Writers, visit facebook.com/foothillswriters.