About Jeff Newberry

Newberry's writing has appeared in a variety of  print and online journals, including The American Journal of Poetry, Connotations, Florida Review, Crab Orchard Review, The Cortland Review, Chattahoochee Review, North American Review, Memorious, Saw Palm:  Florida Literature and Art, Southeast Review, Sweet:  A Literary Confection and Waccamaw:  A Journal of Contemporary Literature. He has served on the faculty of the prestigious Sanibel Island Writers Conference and given talks and led panels at The Association of Writers and Writing Programs Conference (AWP), the Flannery O'Connor and Other Georgia Writers Conference, The Conference on Christianity and Literature, The Florida Literary Arts Coalition's Other Words Conference, the Southeastern Writers Association Conference, and the Gulf Coast Association of Creative Writing Teachers Conference. The recipient of a Tennessee Williams Scholarship from the Sewanee Writers' Conference, he teaches in Writing and Communication Program at Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College in Tifton, Georgia, where he lives with his wife, Heather, and his two children, Ben and Madi.

Newberry earned his BA and MA in English from the University of West Florida in Pensacola, where as a graduate student he served as the managing editor of Panhandler. He holds a PhD from the University of Georgia.

Jeff Newberry tells stories in poetry and prose.  A native of the Florida Gulf Coast, he  is an essayist, fiction writer, and a poet. His most recent book is How to Talk about the Dead. Then there’s a  collaboration with the poet Justin Evans, a collection of epistolary poems entitled Cross Country (WordTech Editions 2019). He is the author of the novel  A Stairway to the Sea (Pulpwood Press), the poetry collection Brackish (Aldrich Press) and the chapbook A Visible Sign (Finishing Line ). With fellow Gulf Coast native, Brent House, he is the co-editor of the anthology The Gulf Stream:  Poems of the Gulf Coast (Snake Nation Press).  He reviews books for The Florida Review ​and other publications. 

Awards and Recognition

  • Author's Prize for "Name," awarded by Mary:  A Journal of New Writing (2016)

  • Named first-ever “Poet in Residence” at Abraham Baldwin College (2014)

  • Finalist for the Richard Peterson Poetry Prize, awarded by Crab Orchard Review (August 2013)

  • Finalist for the Argos Poetry Prize, awarded by the Country Dog Review (May 2013)

  • Nominated by fellow faculty for Donaldson Award for Excellence in Teaching Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College (2013-2016)

  • A Visible Sign nominated for the Conference on Christianity and Literature’s Book of the Year (2009)

  • Original poem “Deep, Like Blood” nominated for a Pushcart Prize (2008)

  • Tennessee Williams Scholarship, The Sewanee Writers’ Conference, Summer 2008

  • ABAC Pacesetter Award (Nominated and chosen by students for outstanding institutional service), 2013, 2010

  • Recipient of a Faculty Development in Georgia (FDIG) Grant (2005-2007)

  • Scholarship, West Chester University Conference on Form and Narrative, Westchester, Pennsylvania, Spring 2005

  • Named “Governor’s Teaching Fellow” by the Institute of Higher Education at the University of Georgia, Athens, Summer 2004