Who's Roy, anyway?
...and why should someone, anyone listen to him?
Who am I to be telling anyone how to write or live a creative life?
Okay, first: I’m not doing that. I’m going to share how I’ve carved out a literary life on this rock. And hopefully, it might give the gentle reader some ideas on how to approach her/his craft.
Second, I’m a writer, editor, poet, and teacher. A Kentucky native and longtime Nashvillian, I’ve spent the last quarter century paying my bills as a technical communicator by day, while living a creative writing life by night and on weekends.
My newspaper pieces, short stories, essays, and poetry have appeared in The Tennessean, The Louisville Review, The News Examiner, the anthology Christmas Is a Season!, and in numerous other paper and digital publications.
Oh, and I appeared (along with my mama’s peanut butter fudge recipe) in the cookbook, Country Goodness Recipes of Tennessee Celebrities. It contained hundreds of recipes from such Tennesseans as Trace Adkins, Miley Cyrus, Ashley Judd, Martina McBride, and Reese Witherspoon. Apparently, someone goofed up and included me. ;-)
For three decades, my day job has been that of technical writer, marketing coordinator, and Webmaster in the IT industry and higher education. And I’ve been an active part of the Middle Tennessee literary community for a couple decades.
For three years at The Southern Festival of Books, I served as an author host and hospitality volunteer, as well as participated in a panel on the public service side of the book business.
I’m the founder and first Director Emeritus of The Writer’s Loft. Now known as MTSU Write, it’s a certificate-in-writing program at Middle Tennessee State University. In that role, I coordinated with area writers, editors, and publishing professionals to deliver to the public over 25 lectures, panels, and workshops. From 2012 to 2016, I was the publisher and editor of 2nd & Church, a literary journal that celebrated writers, poets, and readers. And in 2015, I edited Go for Orbit, the memoir of former astronaut Rhea Seddon. In 2016, Go for Orbit was the winner of the Gold Benjamin Franklin IBPA Awards, Autobiography Category.
I’ve been an active supporter and volunteer at the Nashville Shakespeare Festival’s Shakespeare in the Park and Winter Shakespeare. At the Chattanooga Writers’ Guild, I participated in several panel discussions on the publishing industry and gave a presentation as part of their “Evening with an Editor” event. And for both the Alabama Writers’ Conclave and the Pensters Writing Group of Fairhope, Alabama, I served as the fiction, flash fiction, short story, and poetry judge at annual conventions.
I hold an MFA in Writing (fiction) and post-master’s certificates in writing (poetry & fiction), both from The Naslund-Mann Graduate School of Writing. I’ve been nominated for both the Paul Engle Prize and AWP’s George Garrett Award for Outstanding Service in Literature for my work with The Writer’s Loft and 2nd & Church. For over a decade, I’ve been an adjunct English professor at Western Kentucky University.
I’m a Southern writer with global sensibilities. As part of my military service, I lived and worked in North London’s Swiss Cottage neighborhood, an experience essential to writing THE E-POSTLE. While overseas, I backpacked through Europe and met Carmen, the Flemish pen pal from my youth and young adulthood. After losing touch for several decades, we reestablished communication thanks to the Internet. I believe that seeing my country from a global point of view is important for my children. In the summer of 2022, I took my teenage son Seth with me to Swiss Cottage to fact check my manuscript. He immediately recognized and embraced the city’s diversity. (Mission Accomplished!) And his younger sister Eryn is breaking in her new passport this summer on a trip to Quebec City, Canada, with her granny Ruby. (Mission In Progress!)
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