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Last week, the WKU English department kicked off the Spring 2022 Creative Writing Reading Series by hosting fiction author Holly Goddard Jones. The Creative Writing Reading Series is a group of events that hosts multiple authors each semester, according to creative writing professor Dr. Tom Hunley.
We always try to get the best writers we can find,” Dr. Hunley said.
Originally from Russellville, Jones attended WKU her freshman year of college before transferring to the University of Kentucky. She later earned her MFA in creative writing from Ohio State University. Since then, she has earned multiple awards for her writing, including the Kentucky Literary Award.
Jones read the first chapter of her novel that is currently untitled and a work in progress, which follows the story of a WKU sophomore.
“I’m having fun with the dynamics between these young people in college,” Jones said. “I’m still trying to kind of see how a writer plays through those scenarios.”
Jones shared her struggles with writing during a pandemic, and how she overcomes them.
“I wrote the pages that I have so far very quickly, which happened because I let myself rest for a while,” Jones said. “At other times, I’ve had to treat writing like exercise. It's something I don’t necessarily feel like doing, but I try to enjoy the work instead of just forcing myself to do it.
A Russellville High School graduate, she is the author of The Next Time You See Me and Girl Trouble (stories). Her work has appeared in The Best American Mystery Stories, New Stories from the South, Tin House magazine, and elsewhere. She was a recipient of The Fellowship of Southern Writers’ Hillsdale Prize for Excellence in Fiction and of a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award.
The Salt Line, Jones' second novel, was released in September 2017. Publisher's Weekly, in a positive review, described the book as "seamless" and "thrilling."[9]The novel also received praise from the Los Angeles Times and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
She has made multiple appearances at the prestigious Southern Kentucky Book Fest.
She teaches creative writing at UNC Greensboro and lives in Greensboro with her husband, Brandon, and their children. Brandon Jones is also an RHS graduate.
She previously taught at Denison University in Granville, Ohio and at Murray State University, as well as teaching workshops for the Reynolds Young Writers’ Workshop, the Sewanee Young Writers’ Conference, the Sewanee School of Letters, and Centre College.
The Next Time You See Me is Holly’s debut novel about a woman’s disappearance in a rural Kentucky town and the secrets its residents keep. The town resembles Russellville. Girl Trouble, Holly’s first book, was published in 2009. The book is a collection of eight short stories set in small Southern towns which explore moral dilemmas and the fine line between good and bad.
Holly was a 2007 recipient of a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers' Award, a 2013 recipient of the Hillsdale Award for Fiction from the Fellowship of Southern Writers, and a 2014 recipient of the Kentucky Literary Award.
She is the daughter of Ruth and the late John Goddard of Russellville and the daughter-in-law of Larry and Janice Jones of Logan County and Wavelene Hines of Bowling Green.