Meet the Poet
Amy Billone
Amy Billone is a poet and a scholar who has published widely in both creative and academic journals and books. She holds a B.A. in General Studies in the Humanities from the University of Chicago and an M.A. and Ph.D in Comparative Literature from Princeton University. Billone’s recent poetry collection The Light Changes (2013) earned a Starred Kirkus Review and was chosen by Kirkus as one of the Best Books of 2013. The book won the IndieReader Discovery Award in Poetry in 2014. Billone is currently an Associate Professor of English at the University of Tennessee where she teaches courses on 19th Century Literature, Children’s and Young Adult Literature and World Literature. Her areas of expertise include Romanticism, Children’s and Young Adult Literature, Victorian Poetry, Gothic Studies, Creative Writing, Women Writers and Continental Poetry. Her scholarly book Little Songs: Women, Silence, and the Nineteenth-Century Sonnet (2007) is informed by her unique perspective as a woman poet. As the only extended study of nineteenth-century female sonneteers, Little Songs sheds light on the overwhelming impact that silence makes, not only on British women’s poetry, but also on the development of modern poetry and thought. She maintains a website, AmyBillone.com, and invites your visit. She lives with her two sons in Knoxville, Tennessee. Read.