Barbara Brannon studied poetry with James Dickey at the University of South Carolina, where she earned the M.A. and Ph.D. Her poems have appeared in the Asheville Poetry Review, Cenacle, the South Carolina Review, and Yemassee, among other journals and magazines. She is a frequent contributor of travel and feature articles and author of The Ferries of North Carolina: Traveling the State's Nautical Highways. Now co-owner and editor of West Texas newspapers, she formerly served as managing editor of the University of South Carolina Press and director of the Publishing Laboratory in the Creative Writing Department of the University of North Carolina Wilmington. Her current projects include a history of the Hampshire Bookshop of Northampton, Massachusetts, a mainstay of American bookselling from 1916 to 1971. She is coauthor, with Kay Ellington, of the Paragraph Ranch series of West Texas novels, including The Paragraph Ranch, A Wedding at the Paragraph Ranch, and Give a Cup of Water.