Crystal Wilkinson

Crystal Wilkinson is the author of The Birds of Opulence, winner of the 2016 Ernest J. Gaines Prize for Literary Excellence; Blackberries, Blackberries, winner of the Chaffin Award for Appalachian Literature; and Water Street, a finalist for both the UK's Orange Prize for Fiction and the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award. She has been nominated for two Pushcart Prizes, and her short stories, poems, and essays have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, including, most recently, in the Kenyon Review, Story, Agni Literary Journal, Emergence, Oxford American, and Southern Cultures. She currently teaches at the University of Kentucky, where she is associate professor of English in the MFA in Creative Writing Program.