THE SHORT OF IT

Anna Kline is a songwriter, musician, and poet based in Mt. Sterling, Kentucky.

A self-professed Southern culture junkie, Anna grew up in North Mississippi in the small town of Hernando, located between the Chickasaw river bluffs of Memphis and the Mississippi Delta farmlands—an area with a complex history that yielded its legendary food and arts culture.  

She was raised on a steady diet of three-part harmonies and Memphis soul. Anna is a Kentucky Arts Council Community Scholar, and her duo, Swift Silver, is a proud member of the Kentucky Arts Council Performing Artist Directory. Swift Silver has performed at home and abroad, spreading the gospel of Southern sound.

She explores the world through music, words, photography, and video, facilitating culture & heritage projects and programs that aid in preserving and promoting Southern music and folkways.

Anna recently completed the year-long Poetry Gauntlet workshop at The Carnegie Center (2024) and is currently working on an expansive co-writing album project called "Thinking Like a Mountain" with her Appalachian music family.

In 2025, she appeared at a series of reading events for the Women of Appalachia Project: Women Speak, Volume 10, to perform her poetry and songs included in the published compilation. She is a faculty member (2025) and co-coordinator of the Hindman Appalachian Songwriters Weekend (2026) and attended Hindman’s Appalachian Writers Workshop 2025 to study poetry.

Anna continues to explore the diversity of the Southern experience through her craft. She is recording new music with Swift Silver and collaborating with her Appalachian music family.