TIM SKEEN was born in the coal mining region of eastern Kentucky. After working as a soldier and as a laborer, he went to college and eventually earned a Ph.D. in English from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. In 1996, he returned to Appalachia to teach. He's been an American Red Cross national disaster volunteer for 10 years. His poems have won awards from the Academy of American Poets and the Associated Writing Programs, and they have appeared in many magazines and journals including The Antioch Review, The Journal of Kentucky Studies, and Prairie Schooner. He received a 1999 Al Smith Individual Artist Fellowship from the Kentucky Arts Council. His manuscript, Kentucky Swami, won the 2001 John Ciardi Poetry Prize from BkMk (Bookmark) Press at the University of Missouri-Kansas City and will be published in Fall 2001.