In the Smokies, ‘beneficial isolation’ sparks creativity for resident writer

When Daron K. Roberts’ high school teacher pulled him aside to share her vision for his future as a writer, the four-time class president brushed the comment aside. He knew he’d be going into politics, and that’s all there was to it.

But two decades later, her words came back to him as he sat at home during the 2020 pandemic lockdown, thumbing through the books he’d read over the past years. Unlike in the nonfiction volumes, the margins of every fiction book were filled with notes. At the time, Roberts was already the author of two nonfiction titles, but he realized then that he had a love for fiction that he had yet to tap. This epiphany sent him on a journey that led straight to Great Smoky Mountains National Park. In 2023, he attended the inaugural Tremont Writers Conference, and months later he was selected as the 2024 Steve Kemp Writer in Residence.

“I’ve written on beaches, I’ve written in deserts, I’ve written in rural places, but there’s just something really special about the Smokies—and not just for me, but for anyone,” he said. “I just believe that the setting brings the best creative talent to the forefront. My time there was really special.”

Roberts is still early in his fiction writing career, but he’s no stranger to trying new things. He was a student at Harvard Law School, where he graduated in 2007, when an experience volunteering at a summer football camp led him to refocus his efforts on becoming an NFL football coach. Since then, he’s coached for three NFL teams and one college team, launched a nonprofit football camp, founded the Center for Sports Leadership and Innovation at his alma mater the University of Texas, and published three nonfiction books. He’s meeting this new chapter with an enthusiasm buoyed by his experiences in the Great Smoky Mountains.

For Roberts, a Texas native, the 2023 Tremont Writers Conference served as his introduction to the Smokies. But it also introduced him to a group of other writers who have since become close friends, consistently sharing critiques and encouragement. The conference “created a new writing life in me,” he said, and the Steve Kemp Writers Residency that followed in 2024 was “a lifechanging experience.”

Offered annually since 2019, the residency allows one chosen writer to spend six weeks living in the Smokies, focusing on their craft in a retreat-like setting. Writers use this time to develop new work, and they are also given the opportunity engage with the public through outreach activities and to spend time with the residency’s namesake, Steve Kemp, who retired in 2017 as interpretive products and services director following a 30-year career with Smokies Life.

Roberts, who has a wife and five kids at home in Austin, divided his residency into two three-week chunks, one in March and the other in July. During each stay, his days fell into a peaceful rhythm. Every morning, he’d wake up around 5:30 a.m., sitting on the patio to watch the sun rise and the fog lift in the distance while he jotted down his thoughts and ideas for the day’s writing. Then he’d go on a hike, returning to the cabin by 9:30 a.m. to start writing. After lunch, he’d continue writing and researching through dinnertime. When asked to elaborate on the “life-changing” nature of the experience, Robert said it’s been difficult to find concrete language to define it.

“I can’t identify another setting, of the places that I’ve been to on the planet, that rivals the Smokies in terms of serenity,” he said. “There’s something magical about the way that it sparks curiosity and creativity.”

The setting alone, he said, makes the residency “one of the best in the country.” The time he spent with Kemp learning about the park and the help he received from Michael Aday, the park’s librarian and archivist, in researching his work-in-progress about 1960s Job Corps workers assigned to Great Smoky Mountains National Park, put the experience over the top.

Aday helped Roberts examine the multitude of records available from that period. During his time in the park, Roberts also worked on editing his third nonfiction title, Microwins, and on expanding the short story he’d submitted for the Tremont Writers Conference into a novel. He’s continuing to research the Job Corps story, tracking down and interviewing people with memories from the era as he works toward starting the writing phase of the project.

With applications now being accepted for the 2025 residency, Roberts encourages any writer who takes the craft seriously to consider applying.

“There’s so much peace there that I think it’s very difficult to not find your creative mojo by being in the Smokies for a certain period of time,” he said. “It’s almost like a beneficial isolation. I think for a writer, being isolated in the Smokies just gives a person surface area on which to become the best writer they can be.”

Applications for the 2025 Steve Kemp Writers Residency will be accepted through Nov. 1. Applicants must be 18 or older, and prior knowledge of the Smokies is not a prerequisite for consideration. Learn more at staging.smokieslife.org/the-steve-kemp-writers-residency.