Gary Guinn

Fiction, Non-fiction, and Poetry. I write both literary fiction and mystery/thriller fiction set in the southern Ozark Mountains. My family has lived there for five generations, and the mountains are, like the ticks and chiggers, in my blood. My work explores the tensions between the individual and the social, between desire and conformity, played out in a setting where tradition is a powerful force. I also write nonfiction, and my latest book, co-authored with my colleague Dave Johnson, is a fascinating look at a little-known Navy tradition--the writing of the first deck log of the year on U.S. Navy ships as poetry. Though I do not call myself a poet, I occasionally suffer the pangs and have to write a poem. I finally collected the scattered pieces and published them as a chapbook. I enjoy reading, writing, traveling, walking the dog, and meeting with friends at the local taproom. I was a liberal, progressive professor at a small, conservative university, and the plot of my thriller novel Sacrificial Lam is based on a real experience there early in my teaching career, when a radical Fundamentalist anonymously threatened the lives of three liberal faculty.