a position that went unfilled until it was taken over by bestselling novelist Silas House (Clay's Quilt, The Coal Tattoo) in 2005. House started the Mountain Heritage Literary Festival that same year and the gathering has grown steadily, featuring the region's most celebrated writers (Lee Smith, Earl Hamner, Jr., Ron Rash, Sheila Kay Adams, Denise Giardina, etc.) and becoming one of the premier events of Appalachian literature. Lincoln Memorial University is also home to the Grant Lee Literary Society, which spawned the still surviving Gamma Lambda Sigma Fraternity.
== Richard A. Gillespie College of Veterinary Medicine ==
The LMU College of Veterinary Medicine welcomed its inaugural class in 2014 and achieved American Veterinary Medical Association accreditation in January 2019. Though many classes and research facilities are located on the main LMU campus in the Richard A. Gillespie College of Veterinary Medicine building (completed in 2020), the College of Veterinary Medicine's hands-on educational facilities …
