Natalie Williams
Performing Artist
2026 Firestarter Award | (Elizabethtown) is a singer/songwriter and researcher who performs and composes music inspired by female and LGBTQ Appalachian and Kentucky musicians. Her most recent project, a thesis through the Gaines Center for the Humanities, is titled “‘I Know What You’re Thinking When You Hear the Way I Talk’—The Appalachian Protest Music of Gunning, Ritchie, and Goodman.” The project examines women’s activism through community archives and Appalachian music in various Appalachian counties. She connects this history to the present through original songs and poetry inspired by industrialization and change near Ford’s BlueOval Battery Park. She advocates for queer and female voices to be recognized in Appalachia.