JOHNSON CITY (April 9, 2012) — Dr. Jesse Graves, an assistant professor in East Tennessee State University’s Department of Literature and Language, has been named the recipient of the Weatherford Award in poetry for his first poetry collection, Tennessee Landscape with Blighted Pine, published by Texas Review Press in 2011.

The Weatherford Award is presented annually by Berea College and the Appalachian Studies Association to authors in the categories of nonfiction, fiction and poetry who best illuminate the challenges, personalities and unique qualities of the Appalachian South. Past recipients include Charles Frazier for his novel Cold Mountain, Lee Smith for Fair and Tender Ladies and Henry Louis Gates for Colored Folks: A Memoir.

Graves served as guest editor for a special issue of The Southern Quarterly entitled “The Poetry and Prose of Robert Morgan.” He is co-editor with William Wright and Paul Ruffin of The Southern Poetry Anthology, Volume III: Contemporary Appalachia, and, last summer, he taught a week-long poetry seminar at the Appalachian Writers’ Workshop in Hindman, Ky.

Graves’ poetry has appeared in Prairie Schooner, Connecticut Review, The Texas Review and Still: The Journal, among other periodicals.

For further information, contact Graves at (423) 439-6674 or gravesj@etsu.edu.