Meet The Editors
William Wright, Series Editor and Volume Editor, is author of five collections of poems: the full-length Night Field Anecdote (Louisiana Literature Press, 2011), Bledsoe (Texas Review Press, 2011), Dark Orchard (Texas Review Press, Winner of the Texas Review Breakthrough Poetry Prize, 2005), and the chapbooks The Ghost Narratives (Finishing Line Press, 2008) and Sleep Paralysis (Winner of the South Carolina Poetry Initiative Prize, 2011, forthcoming from Stepping Stones Press). Recent work of Wright's appears in Shenandoah, North American Review, Indiana Review, Colorado Review, Louisiana Literature, Beloit Poetry Journal, New Orleans Review, and Southern Poetry Review, among other literary journals. In addition to writing and editing, Wright currently translates German poetry in collaboration with Martin P. Sheehan, Ph.D. of the University of Virginia, particularly poems from the Austrian and German Expressionist period, and recent translations appear in Nimrod International, Tampa Review, and Antioch Review. Wright holds a Ph.D. in Creative Writing (Poetry) and Literature from The University of Southern Mississippi and is Founding Editor of Town Creek Poetry (www.towncreekpoetry.com). Contact him with any queries about the The Southern Poetry Anthology at vercimber@hotmail.com or william@towncreekpoetry.com.
Stephen Gardner (1948-2009), Volume Editor of the first and second volumes of The Southern Poetry Anthology, a native of Columbia, South Carolina, received his B.A. and M.A. in English from The University of South Carolina, where he studied creative writing with George Garrett and Ennis Rees. He earned the Ph.D. in English and Creative Writing from Oklahoma State University, where, under the direction of Gordon Weaver, he wrote the first creative writing dissertation in poetry while pursuing the traditional degree track in literature. A member of the University of South Carolina Aiken faculty since 1972, Gardner was a popular poetry writing and literature professor. His poems, stories, essays, and scholarship appeared widely in such venues as Southern Review, Poetry Northwest, New Orleans Review, Kansas Quarterly, California Quarterly, Connecticut Review, and The Texas Review. For over a decade he was editor and publisher of The Devil's Millhopper magazine and TDM Press. He served as a member of the Board of Directors of the Aiken Center for the Arts and as former president of the Board of Governors of the South Carolina Academy of Authors. His first collection of poems, This Book Belongs to Eva, was published in 1996 by Palanquin Press, and his second, Taking the Switchback, by Texas Review Press in 2008.
Jesse Graves, Volume Editor, teaches writing and literature classes at East Tennessee State University, where he is an Assistant Professor of English. He received a Ph.D. in English from the University of Tennessee, and an M.F.A. in Poetry from Cornell University. His poems and essays have appeared in such journals as Connecticut Review, Louisiana Literature, Southern Poetry Review, and Tar River Poetry. He recently served as guest editor for a special issue of The Southern Quarterly on "The Poetry and Prose of Robert Morgan."
Paul Ruffin, Volume Editor, 2009 Texas State Poet Laureate, holds the rank of Texas State University System Regents' Professor and Distinguished Professor of English at Sam Houston State University, where he directs the creative writing program, serves as Director of Texas Review Press, and edits The Texas Review. His published books include two novels, four collections of short stories, four books of essays, and seven collections of poetry. He is also the editor or co-editor of eleven other books, including studies on the work of John Steinbeck and Texas novelist William Goyen. Ruffin writes a weekly newspaper column, Ruffin-It, for the Huntsville Item. Ruffin's work has appeared widely in such journals as Alaska Quarterly Review, Georgia Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, New England Review, Paris Review, Poetry, and Southern Review, and he has had fiction and poetry in a number of major university texts published by Little/Brown, Harcourt-Brace, and Norton. His work has also been aired on NPR.
