University of Montevallo - English Department

MLF 2010 includes two keynote readers/workshop leaders (Mitchell L. H. Douglas, and Lorraine Lopez) as well as a lineup of seven invited creative writers (Virginia Van Der Veer Hamilton, Bill Cobb, Kevin Wilson, Jennifer Horne, Lynnell Edwards, Graeme Harper, and Bryn Chancellor). All will give readings.

Mitchell L.H. Douglas is the author of a book of poetry, Cooling Board: A Long-Playing Poem (2009). His poems have appeared in Ninth Letter, Reverie, Callaloo, The Louisville Review, and elsewhere, and in anthologies such as The Ringing Ear: Black Poets Lean South. He is a founding member of Affrilachian Poets and is the editor of PLUCK!: the Journal of Affrilachian Arts and Culture. A Cave Canem fellow and Pushcart Prize nominee, he is assistant professor of creative writing at Indiana University-Purdue University, Indianapolis.

Lorraine López is the author of four books of fiction: Homicide Survivors Picnic (2009); The Gifted Gabaldón Sisters (2008), which was a Borders/Las Comadres Selection; Call Me Henri (2006), which was awarded the Paterson Prize for Young Adult Literature; and Soy La Avon Lady and Others Stories (2002), which won the inaugural Miguel Marmól Prize for fiction. She also edited a collection of essays, An Angle of Vision: Women Writers on Their Poor and Working-Class Roots (2009) and is associate editor of the Afro-Hispanic Review. Her fiction has appeared in Prairie Schooner, Voices of Mexico, CrazyHorse, StoryQuarterly/Narrative Magazine, and elsewhere. A new novel, Limpieza, is forthcoming. She is associate professor of English at Vanderbilt University.

Bryn Chancellor’s short fiction has appeared in Gulf Coast, Blackbird, Colorado Review, CrazyHorse, and elsewhere, and her story collection Meet Me Here was a finalist for the 2009 Mary McCarthy Prize in Short Fiction. She has received a fellowship and a project grant from the Arizona Commission on the Arts, scholarships to the Bread Loaf and Sewanee Writers’ Conferences, and a nomination for Best New American Voices. She is assistant professor of creative writing and English at the University of Montevallo.

Lynnell Edwards is the author of two books of poetry: The Highwayman's Wife (2007) and The Farmer's Daughter (2003). Her work has appeared on Verse Daily and in anthologies such as Poets Against the War and What Comes Down to Us: 25 Contemporary Kentucky Poets, as well as in literary journals such as Poems & Plays, Smartish Pace, Southern Poetry Review, Poetry East, and Dos Passos Review. Twice nominated for a Pushcart Prize, she is a regular reviewer for The Georgia Review, Pleiades, and Rain Taxi. She lives in Louisville, Kentucky where she teaches at Bellarmine University and the University of Louisville.

William Cobb is a novelist, short story writer, essayist, and playwright. His work has appeared in many magazines and journals, including Story, Southern Living, Granta, Shenandoah, The Southern Humanities Review, and The Alabama Literary Review. He has published six novels, Coming of Age at the Y (1984), The Hermit King (1987), A Walk Through Fire (1992), Harry Reunited (1995), A Spring Of Souls (1999), and Wings Of Morning (2001), and a collection of short stories, Somewhere in All This Green: New And Selected Stories (1999), which was named Book of the Year in Fiction by the Alabama Library Association. His newest novel, The Vineyards of Eden, is in progress. Among his numerous honors and awards: a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts; grants in drama and fiction from the Alabama State Council on the Arts; and nominations for the Pulitzer Prize, the Robert Kennedy Award, the Lillian Smith Award and the PEN-Faulkner Award for fiction. He was for twelve years Writer-in-Residence at the University of Montevallo and still lives in Montevallo with his wife Loretta, who is a short story writer.

Virginia Van Der Veer Hamilton is the author of the memoir Teddy’s Child: Growing Up in the Anxious Southern Gentry Between the Great Wars: A Family Memoir (2009) as well as Alabama: The States and the Nation Series and Hugo Black and the Bill of Rights, among other award-winning books. Her articles have appeared in scholarly journals, American Heritage, and the New York Times. A pioneer in journalism and academia – she was an Associated Press reporter for the “women’s beat” at the Truman White House and later the second woman to earn a Ph.D. from the history department of the University of Alabama – Hamilton is professor emeritus in history at University of Alabama at Birmingham.

Graeme Harper is the Spring 2010 Vacca Chair at University of Montevallo. His latest creative and critical works include the novels Camera Phone (2009) and Moon Dance (2008), The Creative Writing Guidebook (2008), as well as a book on sound entitled Sound and Music in Film and the Visual Media (2009). A creative writer, scholar, critic, and research leader, he is the UK chair of Higher Education in Creative Writing, professor of creative writing at Bangor University, and an appointed member of the UK's Arts and Humanities Research Council. He edits the international journal New Writing and directs a variety of UK-USA higher learning partnerships. Also writing under the name Brooke Biaz, he has been honored with the National Book Council Award for New Fiction and the Premier's Award, among others, as well as grants and fellowships from major research and cultural councils in the UK, Europe and Australia.

Jennifer Horne is the author of the book of poems, Bottle Tree, forthcoming in 2010. Her poetry publications include a chapbook, Miss Betty’s School of Dance (1997), and poems and short stories in numerous journals. She is the editor of Working the Dirt: An Anthology of Southern Poets (2003) and co-editor of All Out of Faith: Southern Women on Spirituality (2006). She has worked as a teacher in college, high school, elementary school, international, and prison classrooms, and as a journal, magazine, and book editor. A recipient of an Alabama State Council on the Arts Literature Fellowship, she currently teaches at the University of Alabama.

Kevin Wilson is the author of the story collection Tunneling to the Center of the Earth (2009). His fiction has appeared in Ploughshares, Tin House, One Story, Cincinnati Review, and elsewhere, and has twice been included in the New Stories from the South: The Year’s Best anthology. He has received fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, and the KHN Center for the Arts. He lives in Sewanee, Tennessee, with his wife, the poet Leigh Anne Couch, and his son, Griff, where he teaches fiction at the University of the South and helps run the Sewanee Writers’ Conference.

This project has been made possible by grants from the Alabama State Council on the Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Alabama Humanities Foundation, a state program of the National Endowment for the Humanities, with additional support from the Friends of MLF and the University of Montevallo. Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this web site do not necessarily represent our sponsors.

2009 Montevallo Literary Festival

2008 Montevallo Literary Festival

2007 Montevallo Literary Festival

Photos from 2006 Festival
Photos from 2005 Festival

	Mitchell L.H. Douglas is the author of a book of poetry, Cooling Board: A Long-Playing Poem (2009). His poems have appeared in Ninth Letter, Reverie, Callaloo, The Louisville Review, and elsewhere, and in anthologies such as The Ringing Ear: Black Poets Lean South. He is a founding member of Affrilachian Poets and is the editor of PLUCK!: the Journal of Affrilachian Arts and Culture. A Cave Canem fellow and Pushcart Prize nominee, he is assistant professor of creative writing at Indiana University-Purdue University, Indianapolis.
	Lorraine López is the author of four books of fiction: Homicide Survivors Picnic (2009); The Gifted Gabaldón Sisters (2008), which was a Borders/Las Comadres Selection; Call Me Henri (2006), which was awarded the Paterson Prize for Young Adult Literature; and Soy La Avon Lady and Others Stories (2002), which won the inaugural Miguel Marmól Prize for fiction. She also edited a collection of essays, An Angle of Vision: Women Writers on Their Poor and Working-Class Roots (2009) and is associate editor of the Afro-Hispanic Review. Her fiction has appeared in Prairie Schooner, Voices of Mexico, CrazyHorse, StoryQuarterly/Narrative Magazine, and elsewhere. A new novel, Limpieza, is forthcoming. She is associate professor of English at Vanderbilt University.
	Bryn Chancellor’s short fiction has appeared in Gulf Coast, Blackbird, Colorado Review, CrazyHorse, and elsewhere, and her story collection Meet Me Here was a finalist for the 2009 Mary McCarthy Prize in Short Fiction. She has received a fellowship and a project grant from the Arizona Commission on the Arts, scholarships to the Bread Loaf and Sewanee Writers’ Conferences, and a nomination for Best New American Voices. She is assistant professor of creative writing and English at the University of Montevallo.
	Lynnell Edwards is the author of two books of poetry: The Highwayman's Wife (2007) and The Farmer's Daughter (2003). Her work has appeared on Verse Daily and in anthologies such as Poets Against the War and What Comes Down to Us: 25 Contemporary Kentucky Poets, as well as in literary journals such as Poems & Plays, Smartish Pace, Southern Poetry Review, Poetry East, and Dos Passos Review. Twice nominated for a Pushcart Prize, she is a regular reviewer for The Georgia Review, Pleiades, and Rain Taxi. She lives in Louisville, Kentucky where she teaches at Bellarmine University and the University of Louisville.
	William Cobb is a novelist, short story writer, essayist, and playwright. His work has appeared in many magazines and journals, including Story, Southern Living, Granta, Shenandoah, The Southern Humanities Review, and The Alabama Literary Review. He has published six novels, Coming of Age at the Y (1984), The Hermit King (1987), A Walk Through Fire (1992), Harry Reunited (1995), A Spring Of Souls (1999), and Wings Of Morning (2001), and a collection of short stories, Somewhere in All This Green: New And Selected Stories (1999), which was named Book of the Year in Fiction by the Alabama Library Association. His newest novel, The Vineyards of Eden, is in progress. Among his numerous honors and awards: a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts; grants in drama and fiction from the Alabama State Council on the Arts; and nominations for the Pulitzer Prize, the Robert Kennedy Award, the Lillian Smith Award and the PEN-Faulkner Award for fiction. He was for twelve years Writer-in-Residence at the University of Montevallo and still lives in Montevallo with his wife Loretta, who is a short story writer.
	Virginia Van Der Veer Hamilton is the author of the memoir Teddy’s Child: Growing Up in the Anxious Southern Gentry Between the Great Wars: A Family Memoir (2009) as well as Alabama: The States and the Nation Series and Hugo Black and the Bill of Rights, among other award-winning books. Her articles have appeared in scholarly journals, American Heritage, and the New York Times. A pioneer in journalism and academia – she was an Associated Press reporter for the “women’s beat” at the Truman White House and later the second woman to earn a Ph.D. from the history department of the University of Alabama – Hamilton is professor emeritus in history at University of Alabama at Birmingham.
	Graeme Harper is the Spring 2010 Vacca Chair at University of Montevallo. His latest creative and critical works include the novels Camera Phone (2009) and Moon Dance (2008), The Creative Writing Guidebook (2008), as well as a book on sound entitled Sound and Music in Film and the Visual Media (2009). A creative writer, scholar, critic, and research leader, he is the UK chair of Higher Education in Creative Writing, professor of creative writing at Bangor University, and an appointed member of the UK's Arts and Humanities Research Council. He edits the international journal New Writing and directs a variety of UK-USA higher learning partnerships. Also writing under the name Brooke Biaz, he has been honored with the National Book Council Award for New Fiction and the Premier's Award, among others, as well as grants and fellowships from major research and cultural councils in the UK, Europe and Australia.
	Jennifer Horne is the author of the book of poems, Bottle Tree, forthcoming in 2010. Her poetry publications include a chapbook, Miss Betty’s School of Dance (1997), and poems and short stories in numerous journals. She is the editor of Working the Dirt: An Anthology of Southern Poets (2003) and co-editor of All Out of Faith: Southern Women on Spirituality (2006). She has worked as a teacher in college, high school, elementary school, international, and prison classrooms, and as a journal, magazine, and book editor. A recipient of an Alabama State Council on the Arts Literature Fellowship, she currently teaches at the University of Alabama.
	Kevin Wilson is the author of the story collection Tunneling to the Center of the Earth (2009). His fiction has appeared in Ploughshares, Tin House, One Story, Cincinnati Review, and elsewhere, and has twice been included in the New Stories from the South: The Year’s Best anthology. He has received fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, and the KHN Center for the Arts. He lives in Sewanee, Tennessee, with his wife, the poet Leigh Anne Couch, and his son, Griff, where he teaches fiction at the University of the South and helps run the Sewanee Writers’ Conference.