Darlene Franklin Campbell [M.A.], from the hill country of Southern Kentucky, is the winner of the 2012 Mary Ballard Poetry Chapbook Contest. Her collection of poetry, Uncommon Clay, will be available from Casey Shay Press on March 19, 2012. In addition, her poetry has been included in many publications aimed at raising awareness in the fight against mountain top removal, including Coal Country:Rising up Against Mountain Top Removal the 2009 accompanying anthology to the Ashley Judd film by the same name.
I Listened, Momma, is her debut as a southern novelist. All proceeds from the work go to aid in the fight against cancer.
Darlene is also a visual artist, a teacher and a public speaker.
She is proud of her Appalachian heritage and writes about the region and its people, not as an outsider with romantic notions, but as one who has risen up out of the Kentucky soil, like a tree, with roots that go four hundred years deep.
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