KNOXVILLE — Poet Jeff Daniel Marion will be the Jack E. Reese Writer in Residence at the University of Tennessee Libraries for the 2010-2011 academic year. As Writer in Residence, Marion will organize the Writers in the Library series of readings held in the John C. Hodges Library.
“I am thrilled that Jeff Daniel Marion will represent the UT Libraries at our literary events this year,” said Dean of Libraries Barbara Dewey. “We are offering UT students the opportunity to interact with a distinguished poet and eloquent Tennessee voice. Furthermore, everyone is invited to our Writers in the Libraries series to meet Jeff and to hear some of our exceptionally talented regional authors read from their works.”
Marion grew up in Rogersville and now lives in Knoxville. From 1969 until his retirement in 2002, he taught creative writing at Carson-Newman College, where he was poet-in-residence, director of the Appalachian Center, and editor of “Mossy Creek Reader.”
Marion has published eight collections of poetry, and his poems have appeared in more than 75 journals and anthologies. “Ebbing & Flowing Springs: New and Selected Poems and Prose, 1976-2001” was the winner of the 2003 Independent Publishers Award in Poetry and was named Appalachian Book of the Year by the Appalachian Writers Association. The book was one of three finalists for the Benjamin Franklin Award. His latest collection, “Father,” was awarded the 2009 Quentin R. Howard Poetry Prize.
Other recognitions include the first Literary Fellowship awarded by the Tennessee Arts Commission in 1978, the Appalachian Writers Association’s Outstanding Contribution to Appalachian Literature Award in 2002, and an Educational Service to Appalachia Award from Carson-Newman College in 2005. He has served as poet-in-the-schools in Tennessee, North Carolina and Virginia; was twice poet-in-residence for the Tennessee Governor’s School for the Humanities; and in 1998 was Copenhaver Scholar in Residence at Roanoke College in Salem, Va.
Marion founded “The Small Farm,” one of the region’s most distinguished poetry journals, which he edited from 1975 to 1980. For 20 years he operated Mill Springs Press, producing chapbooks and broadsides from handset type on a Vandercook proof press.
As Writer in Residence, Marion will have access to the resources of the UT Libraries and also a quiet retreat in the Hodges Library to work on his current projects, new collections of poems and memoir essays. His appointment begins Aug. 1.
The position of Writer in Residence was established in 1998. In 2005, it was named in honor of the late Jack Reese, a former chancellor of the university, longtime UT English professor and avid supporter of the UT Libraries and the local writing community.
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C O N T A C T :
Jo Anne Deeken, UT Libraries (865-974-6913, jdeeken@utk.edu)