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EarlierI spent my youth moving about small towns and rural communities in Southwest Virginia and Northwest North Carolina. My post-secondary education was at Brigham Young University and Duke University.
LaterI served in France as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and, briefly, as a consultant in Taiwan, as a teacher in Belize, and as an adjunct professor at Southern Virginia University. In 2014 I retired from a thirty-year career with an NC insurance company to become a writer, editor, and perhaps publisher.
NowMy poetry has won several prizes from the North Carolina Poetry Society, including the Lena Shull Prize in 2015 for the full-length book, Mouth Work, published by St. Andrews University Press. In 2018, “The Creator Praises Birds” won the Clint Larson Poetry Award from BYU Studies Quarterly. My work has been nominated three times for the Pushcart Poetry Prize.
I live in Raleigh with my wife, Patti. |
Fog and Early Morning, Cynthia Reeves, 1985.
Cynthia Reeves was the half-sister of my paternal grandfather. I did not know of her existence until well after her death in 2001, when I was privileged to receive a number of her paintings. Born in the mountains of western North Carolina, she joined the faculty of the University of Connecticut in 1948 and continued painting into her 90s, long after retirement and a move to Del Mar, CA.
Cynthia Reeves was the half-sister of my paternal grandfather. I did not know of her existence until well after her death in 2001, when I was privileged to receive a number of her paintings. Born in the mountains of western North Carolina, she joined the faculty of the University of Connecticut in 1948 and continued painting into her 90s, long after retirement and a move to Del Mar, CA.
"Breathing smoke at the moon," an illustration by Katie LaRosa commissioned for Night Weather. Katie trained as a graphics designer at North Carolina State University. She also designed Night Weather.