Randy Blythe

I grew up in north Alabama, dividing time between Birmingham and Coats Bend. Based in Birmingham (and, for a while, Tuscaloosa), I worked plumbing, played drums in bands, traveled all over the Southeast, finished my English undergrad degree and an English/creative writing MA at UAB and a Poetry MFA and American literature PhD at UA, got married and divorced, edited magazines, and taught and tutored at several of the region's colleges and universities. I currently teach at UAB. In Coats Bend, which is a community in a bend of the Coosa river in Etowah County, Alabama, I worked with my father raising hay and cattle, hunted, fished, played poker, drank my quota, walked the woods, gardened, read, wrote, and listened to tales from the locals as well as katydids and tree frogs at night. I'm very lucky to have had the opportunity to be educated in ways of my own choosing and to know firsthand the value of work and closeness to the land.