University of Iowa

Jeremy B. Jones

Jeremy B. Jones is the author of the memoir Bearwallow: A Personal History of a Mountain Homeland (Blair, 2014), which was named the 2014 Appalachian Book of the Year in nonfiction and awarded gold in the 2015 Independent Publisher Book of the Year awards in memoir. His essays appear in Oxford American, Brevity, The Iowa Review, and elsewhere. A graduate of the M.F.A. program at The University of Iowa, Jeremy is an associate professor of English at Western Carolina University. He also serves as co-editor of the nonfiction book series In Place, published by Vandalia Press (the creative imprint of West Virginia University Press).

Instructor Events

More than Memoir

Weeklong July 14 to July 19 2019
Instructor(s): 
Jeremy B. Jones

The memoir form often carries an unfortunate and limiting reputation as navel-gazing and dreary. Of course, the best memoirs do much more than meticulously document a writer’s dark past: they open up wide-reaching subjects; they find the universal through the personal. This workshop will explore work by writers who successfully weave in other subjects—history, ornithology, geography, music, and more—in order to create artful and ambitious literary nonfiction.

Writing about Nowhere

Weekend July 20 to July 21 2019
Instructor(s): 
Jeremy B. Jones

This course will examine the rich tradition of nonfiction writing about place; however, it will immediately detour onto the road less traveled. We don’t all have stories of Paris or Kilimanjaro. Some of us care about Paducah or desolate prairies. What does a writer need to capture the tiny towns and empty spaces, the everyday Main Streets and failing factories to create engaging, layered essays that reach far-flung readers?