January Jumpstart XIX – January 11-13, 2019

Susan Gregg Gilmore – Fiction

Fiction leader Susan Gregg Gilmore is a freelance journalist and novelist. Her debut novel, Looking for Salvation at the Dairy Queen (Crown/2008), was a USA TODAY bestseller and Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance (SIBA) 2009 Book Award Nominee. Gilmore’s second novel, The Improper Life of Bezellia Grove (Crown/2010), was selected as part of TARGET’S Emerging Author Program. Her most recent work, The Funeral Dress, was called “a revelatory novel that offers an evocative account of the lives of Appalachian working women” by Kirkus Reviews and was selected for TARGET’S Emerging Author Program and named a TARGET Recommended Read. Gilmore has also written for The Los Angeles Times, The Christian Science Monitor, Parenting, and Garden & Gun. She currently lives in Chattanooga.

Connie Jordan Green – Poetry

Poetry leader Connie Jordan Green is the author of two novels for young people (The War at Home and Emmy); two poetry chapbooks, Slow Children Playing and Regret Comes to Tea, and two full-length poetry collections, Household Inventory, winner of the Brick Road Poetry Press 2013 Award, and Darwin’s Breath, recently released by Iris Press. Her poetry has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies; since 1978 she has written a personal column for The Loudon County News Herald. She belongs to various writing organizations, including the Tennessee Mountain Writers (Board of Directors); she was the recipient of a Lifetime Achievement Award from the East Tennessee Hall of Fame for Writers and a Tribute to the Arts Award from the Arts Council of Oak Ridge, TN. She has taught creative writing for The University of Tennessee and continues to teach at various workshops.

This event is funded in part under an agreement with the
Tennessee Arts Commission and the National Endowment for the Arts.