ABOUT DARNELL

Darnell Arnoult is prize-winning author of Galaxie Wagon: Poems and What Travels With Us: Poems (LSU Press) and the novel Sufficient Grace (Free Press/Simon & Schuster, Inc.), which received a starred review in Publisher’s Weekly. Her shorter works have appeared in a variety of journals, including Appalachian Heritage, Asheville Poetry Review, Nantahala Review, Now and Then, Sandhills Review, Southern Cultures, Southern Exposure,  Southwest Review, and various anthologies.

Darnell holds a BA in American Studies with a concentration in Southern Folklore from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the MA in English and Creative Writing from North Carolina State University, and the MFA in Creative Writing from University of Memphis.

She is the recipient of the SIBA Poetry Book of the Year Award, the Weatherford Award for Appalachian Literature, the Thomas and Lillie D. Chaffin Award, the Mary Frances Hobson Medal for Arts and Letters, and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. In 2007 she was named Tennessee Writer of the Year by the Tennessee Writers Alliance.During her tenure as Writer-in- Residence at Lincoln Memorial University in Harrogate, Tennessee, 2010-2020, Darnell directed the Mountain Heritage Literary Festival, in collaboration with Humanities Tennessee founded and directed the Appalachian Young Writers Workshop, and, along with writer and editor Denton Loving, was co-founder and co-executive editor of the national online publication drafthorse: a literary journal of work and no work.

Darnell is a long-time faculty member of Table Rock Writers Workshop (formerly Duke Writers Workshop), John C. Campbell Folk School, and for 8 years taught extended novel  and memoir  workshops at Learning Events.

Born and raised in Henry County, VA, Darnell lived 20 years in the Durham/Chapel Hill area of NC, 20 years in middle and east TN, and is back in the NC Piedmont.

Today, Darnell offers presentations and workshop for various organization upon request and offers private virtual workshops and coaching in fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, and creative practice from her home in Mebane, NC. Contact her for more information.