Teacher and author Zackary Vernon. A white male with gray hair and beard and wearing glasses smiles at the camera. He is dressed in a white shirt, purple tie and gray suit jacket.

Short Bio

Zackary Vernon lives in Boone, NC, where he’s on the faculty at Appalachian State University. He is the author of the debut novel, Our Bodies Electric, editor of Ecocriticism and the Future of Southern Studies, and co-editor of Summoning the Dead: Essays on Ron Rash. His creative nonfiction has been published in magazines and journals, such as Salvation South, The Bitter Southerner, North Carolina Literary Review, and Carolina Quarterly. You can find him on Instagram @zackvernon33, where you will find pictures of food, mountains, a dog named Turnip, and occasional drawings that look like they’ve been done by a precocious child.

Zackary Vernon, in jeans, winter jacket, and hat, stands next to his black and white dog, Turnip.

Zack and his dog, Turnip.

A little more

Zackary Vernon grew up in Pawleys Island, South Carolina, where his debut novel, Our Bodies Electric, is set. His relationship with his hometown is complicated and even contradictory. Its geography is where he feels most at home, and yet growing up there he felt at best like a black sheep and at worst like a social pariah. His work explores this love/hate relationship with Pawleys Island and, more broadly, the U.S. South. His chief aim is to craft young characters who learn to celebrate themselves, despite sometimes being surrounded by narrow-minded views on spirituality, gender identity, and sexual orientation. Zack’s vision for the South, then, is one that embraces diversity and the full range of human potential.

Zack holds a BA in English from Clemson University, an MA from North Carolina State University, and a PhD from UNC-Chapel Hill. At those institutions, he was fortunate enough to study with many highly regarded writers, including Jill McCorkle, Keith Lee Morris, Minrose Gwin, and Randall Kenan. He has taught literature and writing at NC State, UNC, Duke, Merrimack College, and Appalachian State, where he is now an Associate Professor of English.

Zack is the editor of two scholarly collections: Summoning the Dead: Essays on Ron Rash and Ecocriticism and the Future of Southern Studies. He has also published in many magazines and journals, such as The Bitter Southerner, Southern Cultures, Cold Mountain Review, and The Carolina Quarterly. Three of his essays have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize in recent years, and in 2015 he won the Alex Albright Creative Nonfiction Award from the North Carolina Literary Review. Zack is currently the Nonfiction Editor for Cold Mountain Review. 

A pale yellowish cow with long white horns lays on the grass. Behind it are other cows and a dog.
Close up image of produce, including carrots chard, and tomatoes.