Jennifer Horne
“I live just outside of Tuscaloosa, Alabama, less than an hour from Birmingham. Tuscaloosa is town; Birmingham is city. I head west to go to Tuscaloosa, east to get to Birmingham, on an interstate with frequent slowdowns due to accident or construction or the invisible whims of the travel gods. Sometimes I go to Birmingham to go to other places—it’s the nearest airport—but going to the city means food and art and books and festivals, the energy of a city that’s making a new name for itself in the twenty-first century. When I think of Birmingham, I think of a big-hearted place with room for a lot of different kinds of creativity and innovation.”
Jennifer Horne is the Poet Laureate of Alabama, 2017-2021. A writer, editor, and teacher who explores Southern identity and experience, especially women’s, through prose, poetry, fiction, and anthologies and in classes and workshops, she is the author of two full-length poetry collections and three chapbooks, a short story collection, and the editor of several volumes of poetry, essays, and stories. Her latest poetry collection is Borrowed Light. Her web page and blog, “A Map of the World,” are at: http://jennifer-horne.blogspot.com/