Poems

December 21, 2012 Kevin Brown is a professor at Lee University in Cleveland, Tennessee. He is the author of one book of poetry, Exit Lines (Plain View Press, 2009), and two chapbooks: Abecedarium (Finishing Line Press, 2011) and Holy Days: Poems (winner of the 2011 Split Oak Press Chapbook Contest). He has also written a memoir, Another Way: Finding Faith, Then Finding It Again (Wipf and Stock, 2012), and a book of scholarship, They Love to Tell the Story: Five Contemporary Novelists Take on the Gospels (Kennesaw State University Press, 2012). He received his M.F.A from Murray State University.

December 7, 2012 Clay Matthews has published poetry in journals such as The American Poetry Review, Black Warrior Review, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Gulf Coast, and elsewhere. His most recent book, Pretty, Rooster), is a collection of sonnets written in syllabics. His other books are Superfecta (Ghost Road Press, 2008) and RUNOFF (BlazeVox, 2009). He teaches at Tusculum College in Greeneville and edits poetry for the Tusculum Review.

November 16, 2012 Marcel Brouwers, a first-generation American, has lived in Chicago, Seoul, Prague, Zihuatanejo, Kalamazoo, and Cassis, France. He currently lives in Knoxville, where he teaches in the University of Tennessee’s English department and serves as director of the UTK Writing Center. He is also the author of The Rose Industrial Complex, a chapbook of poems published by Finishing Line Press in 2009. He will read from his new collection, The Old Cities, on November 25 at Union Ave. Books in Knoxville. The event begins at 2 p.m.

November 9, 2012 Ted Olson, a former Fulbright Senior Scholar, is the author of several books, including a previous collection of poetry, Breathing in Darkness, and a study of Appalachian culture, Blue Ridge Folklife. He has edited numerous books, including collections of literary work by James Still, Sarah Orne Jewett, and Sherwood Anderson; and the award-winning The Bristol Sessions: Writings about the Big Bang of Country Music. Olson served as associate editor for The Encyclopedia of Appalachia and co-editor of A Tennessee Folklore Sampler. In 2012, for his work as a music historian, Olson received two Grammy Award nominations and also the East Tennessee Historical Society’s Regional Excellence in History Award of Distinction. He holds the Ph.D. degree in English from the University of Mississippi, and he teaches at East Tennessee State University in Johnson City. Ted Olson will read from Revelations: Poems on November 11 at Union Ave. Books in Knoxville. The event begins at 2 p.m.

November 2, 2012 Hadley Hury recently retired as college counselor and chair of the department of English at Hutchison School in Memphis; for ten years he also was film critic at the Memphis Flyer. Hury’s 2003 novel, The Edge of the Gulf, received strong national reviews; he followed it with a collection of stories, It’s Not the Heat, in 2007. His poetry and short fiction have appeared in numerous magazines, reviews, and journals including Image, The James Dickey Review, Green Mountains Review, Colorado Review, and Appalachian Heritage, among others. He and his wife live in Rugby, Tennessee.

September 26, 2012 Kory Wells often performs her poetry with her daughter Kelsey, an old-time musician, in an act that’s been called “hillbilly cool” and “moving, fun, spiritual, and sassy.” Decent Pan of Cornbread, the first album by the Murfreesboro duo, is out this fall. Kory is author of the poetry chapbook Heaven Was the Moon (March Street Press). Her novel-in-progress was a William Faulkner competition finalist, and her “standout” nonfiction has been praised by Ladies’ Home Journal. Her work appears in Christian Science Monitor, Ruminate, Rock & Sling, Deep South Magazine, Now & Then, New Southerner, Literary Mama, and other publications. Kory and Kelsey Wells will appear at the Scarritt-Bennett Center in Nashville on September 27 at 7 p.m., and at the twenty-fourth annual Southern Festival of Books, held October 12-14 at Legislative Plaza in Nashville. Both events are free and open to the public.