Staff

2013 Applachian Writers' Workshop Staff
This will be our 36th year!

Barbara Kingsolver

Jim Wayne Miller/James Still Keynote Address: Barbara Kingsolver
Poetry: Tony Crunk | George Ella Lyon
Short Story: Holly Goddard Jones | Alex Taylor
Novel: Mark Powell | Glenn Taylor
Memoir: Karen Salyer McElmurray
Nonfiction: Fenton Johnson
Appalachian Literature: Silas House
Songwriting: Caroline Herring
Film & New Media: Jack Wright
Introductions: Robert Gipe | Marianne Worthington
Senior Writer-In-Residence: Gurney Norman

Tony Crunk is a native of Hopkinsville, Kentucky. His first collection of poetry, Living in the Resurrection, was the 1994 selection in the Yale Series of Younger Poets. He has since published several additional collections of poetry, including his most recent, New Covenant Bound, as well as children's books and short fiction. He currently lives in Birmingham, Alabama, where he is writer-in-residence for the Alabama Writers' Forum's "Writing Our Stories Project," which offers creative writing instruction to residents of the state's juvenile detention facilities.

Robert Gipe is director of the Appalachian Program at Southeast Kentucky Community & Technical College. He coordinates the production of public art projects, and is one of the executive producers of the Higher Ground series of community plays. He lives in Harlan, Kentucky, where he has designed nearly a hundred collectible t-shirts. His fiction has been published in Appalachian Heritage and Still. He grew up in Kingsport, Tennessee.

Caroline Herring is one of the most literate and distinctive songwriters of her generation. Since her debut in 2001, she has gained a devoted following and much critical acclaim. Named “Best New Artist” at the Austin Music Awards, Caroline has been profiled on NPR’s “All Things Considered,” and been a guest on Garrison Keillor’s “A Prairie Home Companion.” She was the only American representative for Cecil Sharp Project, a group of musicians commissioned to compose music based on the life and collections of the famous song catcher.

Silas House is the author of five best-selling novels including his most recent, Same Sun Here (2012), as well as the nonfiction work, Something’s Rising (with Jason Howard), and three produced plays. In 2010 he edited the posthumous manuscript of James Still, Chinaberry. He has received many prestigious awards including the James Still Prize for Special Achievement from the Fellowship of Southern Writers. In addition to being an acclaimed fiction writer, he is also a music journalist, environmental activist and columnist.

Fenton Johnson is the author of two novels; Crossing the River and Scissors, Paper, Rock and two works of nonfiction; Geography of the Heart: A Memoir and Keeping Faith: A Skeptic’s Journey among Christian and Buddhist Monks. He is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, as well as Wallace Stegner and James Michener Fellowships in Fiction, National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships in both fiction and creative nonfiction, and an Arizona Commission on the Arts Fellowship in creative nonfiction. He is on the creative writing faculty at the University of Arizona and the brief residency MFA program at Spalding University.

Holly Goddard Jones' debut novel, The Next Time You See Me, will be released in February 2013. She is the author of Girl Trouble (2009), a collection of short stories, and her fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in Tin House, Epoch, Best American Mystery Stories, New Stories from the South and various journals. She was a 2007 recipient of the Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers' Award, which honors six emerging women fiction writers annually. She teaches in the MFA program in creative writing at UNC Greensboro.

Barbara Kingsolver is the author of 14 books and was named one the most important writers of the 20th Century by Writers Digest. In 2000 she received the National Humanities Medal for service through the arts. She has received multiple awards from the American Booksellers Association and the American Library Association, among many others. The Poisonwood Bible was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the Orange Prize, and won the national book award of South Africa. Animal, Vegetable, Miracle won numerous prizes including the James Beard award. In 2011, Kingsolver was awarded the Dayton Literary Peace Prize for the body of her work. Her newest novel, Flight Behavior, was released in November of 2012.

George Ella Lyon's most recent poetry collection is She Let Herself Go, (2012). Her other work includes a novel, a memoir and a short story collection, as well as 37 books for young readers. She has received an Al Smith Fellowship, residencies at the Hambidge Center for the Arts, numerous grants from The Kentucky Foundation for Women, a Pushcart Prize nomination and is featured in the PBS series, "The United States of Poetry." A native of Harlan County, Kentucky, Lyon works as a freelance writer and teacher in Lexington, Kentucky. 

Karen Salyer McElmurray is the author of The Motel of the Stars, which was nominated for The Weatherford Prize in Fiction. She is also the author of the memoir, Surrendered Child: A Birth Mother’s Journey and Strange Birds in the Tree of Heaven, winner of the Chaffin Award for Appalachian Writing. Her stories have been published in anthologies and journals including The Kenyon Review and the Alaska Quarterly Review, and she received a Pushcart Prize nomination in 1994.

Gurney Norman is perhaps best known for writing Divine Right’s Trip, a quintessential 1960s road novel. Gurney served as Poet Laureate of Kentucky in 2009 and 2010. For the past several years, he has been senior writer-in-residence for the workshop, following in the footsteps of the late James Still. He has been a mentor to numerous aspiring writers for the past 40 years. He teaches creative writing at the University of Kentucky and is the workshop’s resident raconteur.

Mark Powell is the author of three novels: Prodigals, Blood Kin (winner of the Peter Taylor Prize for the novel) and The Dark Corner. Mark has received fellowships from NEA and the Breadloaf Writer’s Conference. His fiction, essays and reviews have appeared in a number of journals, including Still, Ellipsis, Rivendell, The New Delta Review, Appalachian Heritage, American Polymath, The South Carolina Review and Yemassee. In 2010, he received the Chaffin Award for contributions to Appalachian Literature.

Alex Taylor lives in Rosine, Kentucky. His work has appeared in The Black Warrior Review, American Short Fiction, The Oxford American and elsewhere. He is the author of the short story collection The Name of the Nearest River, which won the Linda Bruckheimer Kentucky Series Award.

Glenn Taylor was born and raised in Huntington, West Virginia. His first novel, The Ballad of Trenchmouth Taggart, was a 2008 National Book Critics Circle Award finalist and a Barnes & Noble Discover pick. His second novel, The Marrowbone Marble Company, was published by Ecco in May 2010. He teaches at West Virginia University in Morgantown.

Marianne Worthington is on the faculty at University of the Cumberlands and the Kentucky Governors School for the Arts. Her poems have appeared in Shenandoah, Kalliope, The Louisville Review, Kaleidoscope, Natural Bridge, Wind and other literary magazines. Her poetry chapbook, Larger Bodies Than Mine, won the 2007 Appalachian Book of the Year Award for Poetry from the Appalachian Writers Association. Marianne is poetry editor for Still, an online journal of contemporary literary writing of the Mountain South.

Jack Wright recently retired from teaching personal documentary and film studies in the graduate program at Ohio University’s School of Film. He is a two-time winner of the Ohio Arts Council’s Individual Artist fellowship in writing. His works have appeared in a variety of journals, magazines as well as on Public Television and National Public Radio. He is the writer and producer of the Grammy-nominated Music of Coal: Mining Songs from the Appalachian Mountains.