I am a journalist and biographer who also writes fiction and poetry. In 2013, the University Press of Mississippi published my biography of old-time country musicians Carter and Ralph Stanley. Lonesome Melodies: The Life and Music of the Stanley Brothers was nominated for awards from the Appalachian Studies Association and International Country Music Association, and a Virginia Readers' Choice Award. I now am writing the biography of Mississippi blues musician Booker "Bukka" White, whom I interviewed in 1976 and have researched when I could since 1991. In 2018, I received a MacDowell Colony Fellowship in nonfiction that gave me the gift of uninterrupted time to work on the book.