Jackson Culpepper grew up in a small town in south Georgia. Growing up as a redneck kid, a church kid, and a kid who carried around a leatherbound Edgar Allen Poe collection in fifth grade shaped his stories and poems (and Jackson.) Since then, he has lived in Southern Appalachia, the mountain west, and the desert southwest, taking on retail jobs while writing before getting into teaching as contingent faculty. Jackson received the James Dickey Fellowship at the University of South Carolina. His work has appeared in Armchair/Shotgun, Cartridge Lit, and most recently in Identity Theory. In addition to writing, he teaches first-year English at several community colleges, working to develop equity-minded and antiracist pedagogy for himself and among his colleagues. He also works to learn bioregionalism and plays Dungeons and Dragons with a group of fellow writers. He lives with his partner in the Denver, Colorado area.