All About Adrian
POET. MOTHER. APPALACHIAN.
CONTRARIAN. PROFESSOR.
Southerner at Home in the Woods and Among the Craggy Rocks of Maine.
Beginnings
Adrian was born and raised in Abington, Virginia. Born into a family of artists, including her grandfather (Banner Blevins, painter, sculptor, and cabinetmaker), father (Tedd Blevins, painter), stepfather (Jake Cress, cabinetmaker), and stepmother (Carole Blevins), Adrian found herself similarly called to the arts at a young age. She first started writing poetry and short fiction in the seventh grade. She traded in her flute for a typewriter in the tenth. It was a used IBM Selectric II that she misses to this day.
Education
Academic Career
Adrian has been teaching writing for more than thirty years. She began in the Virginia Community College system, teaching beginning composition courses at Virginia Western Community College and Dabney Lancaster Community College. She then went on to teach creative writing courses at Hollins University, Roanoke College, Sweet Briar College, and Lynchburg College, where she was a Thornton Wilder Writer-in-Residence. She moved to Maine in 2004 to teach at Colby College, where she is Professor of English and directs the Creative Writing Program.
Full-Length Poetry Collections
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Status Pending (Four Way, 2023)
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Appalachians Run Amok (Two Sylvias Press Wilder Prize, 2018)
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Live from the Homesick Jamboree (Wesleyan University Press, 2009)
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The Brass Girl Brouhaha (Ausable Press, 2004) (Kate Tufts Discovery Award)
Poetry Chapbooks
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Bloodline (The Hollyridge Press Chapbook Series, 2012)
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The Man Who Went Out for Cigarettes (Bright Hill Press Chapbook Award, 1996)
Other Books
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Walk Till the Dogs Get Mean: Meditations on the Forbidden from Contemporary Appalachia (with Karen Salyer McElmurray), Ohio University Press, 2015
Honors & Awards
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Wilder Prize from Two Sylvias Press, 2018
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Kate Tufts Discovery Award, 2004
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Rona Jaffe Foundation Award, 2002
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Bright Hill Press Chapbook Award, 1996