Jennifer Probst
Marsha Mathews
Marsha Mathews is an American poet and a Professor of English at Dalton State College, in Dalton, Georgia. Her new book, Growing Up with Pigtails, presents both narrative and lyrical reflections on that sometimes troubling, sometimes triumphant experience of growing up, girl. Marsha’s earlier books differ in theme. In Hallelujah Voices (Aldrich Press, 2012), Marsha, herself a former United Methodist minister, writes of an Appalachian church congregation as its members and pastor experience pivotal moments. Marsha’s love poems, Sunglow & a Tuft of Nottingham Lace, won the Red Berry Editions 2011 Chapbook Award and was published in a hand-bound collector’s edition. Finally, her first chapbook, Northbound Single-Lane, portrays a woman moving on from a failed marriage, to travel and raise her children. This book was released in 2010 by Finishing Line Press.
The recipient of the Orlando Prize (AROHO) for Flash Fiction, Marsha has published both poetry and fiction in literary periodicals, such as Appalachian Heritage, Broad River Review, Greensboro Review, The Los Angeles Review, Pembroke Magazine, Raleigh Review, and anthologies, such as Literature Today. What’s next? For several years, Marsha has been passionately researching and writing her first full collection, Beauty Bound. Beauty Bound explores the extremes people will go in pursuit of beauty and the entrapment of its allure.