Amy C. Blackmarr

In 1991, Amy sold her paralegal business in Kansas and returned to her grandfather’s farm in rural South Georgia to write. During her five years there she became a featured commentator for Georgia Public Radio and earned her B.A. (1994) and M.A. (1996) in English from Valdosta State University. Viking published her master’s thesis, a collection of personal essays entitled Going to Ground, in 1997 and her Ph.D. dissertation, House of Steps, in 1999. After earning her doctorate in English from the University of Kansas in 2000, Amy returned to Georgia to live in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Mercer University Press published her third collection of essays, Above the Fall Line, in 2003 along with new editions of her first two books. Amy was nominated in 2004 for the Georgia Author of the Year Award and the Southern Environmental Law Center’s prestigious Phillip D. Reed Memorial Award for Outstanding Writing on the Southern Environment. Amy frequently teaches and speaks on writing and the personal essay and from time to time continues her work with public radio.