June McCash

is the author of six nonfiction books, most recently, her debut novel, Almost to Eden, which won the Georgia Author of the Year Award for First Novel. She is also a published poet and has completed workshops with former U.S. poet laureates Mark Strand and Billy Collins. She was the founding director of the MTSU Honors Program and chair of the University's Department of Foreign Languages. Since her retirement from teaching in 2004, she has become a full-time author and has won awards for fiction, nonfiction, and poetry.