Dr. Amy Wright Is The New Basler Chair At ETSU

From East Tennessee State University:

JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. – Poet, editor and award-winning essayist Dr. Amy Wright is the
Spring 2022 Wayne G. Basler Chair of Excellence for the Integration of the Arts, Rhetoric
and Science, a prestigious honor given by East Tennessee State University for nearly
30 years.

Wright coordinates the Creative Writing Program at Austin Peay State University, where
she also teaches writing, and serves as the senior editor for the Zone 3 journal and
the nonfiction editor for Zone 3 Press. Her accolades are long: two Peter Taylor Fellowships
to the Kenyon Review Writers’ Workshop, an Individual Artist Fellowship through Humanities
Tennessee and a fellowship through the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. Wright
has read or led workshops nationally and internationally from Boulder, Colorado, to
Reykjavík, Iceland, as well as the Savannah College of Art and Design, Massey University
of New Zealand and the University of Denver, where she earned her doctorate.

“Yet if you ask Amy about her accomplishments, she will point to current and former
students whose work has been published, or who have gone on to successful careers
in editing, writing and education,” said Dr. Jesse Graves, a professor and poet-in-residence
in the Department of Literature and Language at ETSU. “She is looking forward to returning to the mountains to work with the students
and community at ETSU.”

As the Basler Chair, Wright will teach two spring semester classes and make several
public presentations:

Wright grew up on a dairy farm in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Southwest Virginia,
the would-be seventh generation in her family to tend those foothills. Instead, she
became an Appalachian writer who cultivated connections between nature and people
in her work. In addition to “Paper Concert,” she has published three books of poetry,
six chapbooks and over 180 individual poems, essays and interviews, including two
science articles on which she is listed as a co-author.

Wright’s newest book, “Paper Concert,” embodies the integrative spirit of the Basler Chair appointment, the university
said, drawing together in conversation artists, scientists, activists and humanists
in a far-reaching dialogue that ranges from forest ecology to Appalachian quilt-making,
with countless topics in between.

Established in 1994, the Basler Chair of Excellence is designed to help bridge the
gap in academia between the sciences, the arts and the humanities disciplines. The
chair serves for one semester.

This press release was produced by East Tennessee State University. The views expressed are the author's own.