Silas House, Fiction
Silas House is the New York Times bestselling author of seven novels: Clay’s Quilt (2001), A Parchment of Leaves (2003), The Coal Tattoo (2005), Eli the Good (2009), Same Sun Here (2012), Southernmost (2018), and Lark Ascending (2022), which won 2023 Southern Book Prize and 2023 Nautilus Book Award. He is also the author of the 2009 book of creative nonfiction Something’s Rising (with co-author Jason Kyle Howard) and has had four plays produced. House released two new books in 2025: a poetry collection called All These Ghosts and—under a slight pseudonym—a murder-mystery called Dead Man Blues.
House’s writing has appeared recently in The Washington Post, The Atlantic, Time, Garden & Gun, The New York Times, The Bitter Southerner, and many more of the country’s leading publications. He was named Appalachian of the Year in 2022, when he was also the recipient of the Duggins Prize, the largest award for an LGBTQ writer in the nation. He is the member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers and has been given such honors as an E.B. White Award, the Storylines Prize from the New York Public Library, the Lee Smith Award, the Caritas Medal, and the Hobson Medal, among many others. House also served as the Poet Laureate of Kentucky from 2023-2025.
As a music journalist, House has worked with Jason Isbell, Kacey Musgraves, Lucinda Williams, Tyler Childers, S.G. Goodman, Lee Ann Womack, Kris Kristofferson, S.G. Goodman, and many other musicians. In 2023, House served as writer, co-producer, and creative director of the Tyler Childers video "In Your Love," which earned him a Grammy nomination and finalist recognition, as well as other award nominations from the Academy of Country Music, the MTV Video Awards, and the Country Music Television Awards.
House teaches at Berea College, where he is the National Endowment for the Humanities Chair, and at the Naslund-Mann Graduate School of Creative Writing. A native of Eastern Kentucky, he now lives in Lexington, Kentucky.
Author photo by Kevin Nance.
Scott Owens, Poetry
Scott Owens, Poet Laureate of Hickory, North Carolina, is the author of 25 collections of poetry, most recently The Song Is Why We Sing, poems about writing, and Elemental, poems about nature, both from Redhawk Publications.
Owens is recipient of awards from the Academy of American Poets, the Pushcart Prize Anthology, the Next Generation-Indie Lit Awards, the North Carolina Writers Network, the North Carolina Poetry Society, and the Poetry Society of South Carolina. He has twice been nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award and was 2016 Recipient of the Pine Song Dedication for his contributions to the poetry community.
Owens holds degrees from Ohio University, UNC Charlotte, and UNC Greensboro. A former editor of Wild Goose Poetry Review and Southern Poetry Review, Owens has taught creative writing at every level from elementary to college and in the community, and has given more than 300 readings of his poetry.
He is Professor of Poetry at Lenoir Rhyne University in Hickory, where he also owns and operates Taste Full Beans Coffeehouse and Gallery and has hosted the Poetry Hickory reading series for almost 20 years.
Learn more about Scott at scottowenspoetry.com.