On Mulholland Drive in L.A.
with the Hollywood Sign in the Distance
Born November 30, 1973, I was reared in southwest Tennessee.
I was the youngest of four children born to parents in their
forties when I came along. As a child, I was the proverbial tomboy,
playing baseball and cavorting in the woods behind my house with
my grandmother, who lived next door. I loved to read books, write
poetry, and make up stories. Even at a young age, I learned that
the local library was my solace.
At the University of Memphis as a college undergraduate, I
studied creative writing and journalism. On weekends during this
time, I wrote feature stories and a weekly column for my hometown's
county newspaper, The Independent Appeal, in Selmer,
Tennessee.
I went on to pursue a master's degree in English at The University
of Tennessee at Knoxville, where I received a graduate poetry
writing award and was a featured reader of original poems at
several Knoxville area venues. My work culminated in a book of
poems titled Rivers of Urgent Breath, presented as my
thesis.
After finishing a master's degree, I taught composition, creative
writing, and poetry classes instructor in the English department
at UT Knoxville from 1999 until 2004. During this time, I also
served on the board of directors of the Knoxville Writers's Guild,
co-directed the UT Young Writers's Institute for high school
students, completed an artistic fellowship at the Hambidge Center
for Arts and Sciences in Rabun Gap, Georgia, and studied writing
with authors Lee Smith and Silas House at the Hindman Settlement
School in Hindman, Kentucky.
I am currently a Master of Fine Arts student in fiction writing
at The University of Memphis, working on a novel as my thesis
with novelist Richard Bausch as my adviser. I write a weekly
column for The Daily Corinthian in Corinth, Mississippi,
a few miles from where I grew up. In my spare time, I enjoy hitting
juke joints to be dazzled by the blues, seeking out savory cuisine,
venturing to exotic places, and exalting life, which is just
too damn short after all.
I welcome correspondence at the following address:
Stacy Jones, Columnist
c/o The Daily Corinthian
P.O. Box 1800
Corinth, MS, 38835 |
