Interview: 4 questions for Murfreesboro’s Poet Laureate

KORY WELLS is the author of Sugar Fix, poetry from Terrapin Books (September 2019), and the poetry chapbook Heaven Was the Moon from March Street Press. Her writing has been featured on The Slowdown from American Public Media, won the 2023 Flash Creative Nonfiction Contest at Blue Earth Review, and appears in Christian Science Monitor, The Southern Poetry Anthology, The Strategic Poet, and elsewhere.

When she’s not writing, the former software developer advocates for democracy, afternoon naps, and other good causes. A seventh generation Tennessean, she has served as the inaugural poet laureate of Murfreesboro, Tennessee, and mentors poets across the nation through the from-home creative writing program MTSU Write. She's also the principal founder of Poetry in the Boro and a co-producer of the quarterly storytelling-based Bloom Stage with Kara J. Kemp. Learn more

Kory and her daughter Kelsey Wells, an old-time musician, collaborate on the album DECENT PAN OF CORNBREAD. Kelsey also plays in the contra dance band trio THE ENGINE ROOM. Sample or purchase their music below!