Deborah Tilson Clark

Deborah Tilson Clark is a native of Southwest Virginia, with roots that have been growing in good Grayson County soil for 150 years. She attended Emory & Henry College for a year before marrying; she graduated from Berea College, in Kentucky, with a BA in English.

Clark recognized her need to tell stories before she left grade school, and has been writing them down and collecting them, ever since. She was Feature Editor of her high school newspaper, staff/contributor to the literary magazine at E&H, and worked for the Declaration and Galax Gazette newspapers. Her work has been published in several regional magazines and journals, including Blue Ridge Country and Sow's Ear. Among the creative fiction competitions that Clark has won are the Sherwood Anderson Prize for Fiction, and the Chautauqua Festival in Wythe County. She is currently a member of the Ridgeline Writers writing group.

Clark and her husband of nearly 50 years, Terry, live on the banks of Guffy Creek in western Grayson County.They have two children, Jessie Ann and Thomas. Besides her on-going obsession with telling a good tale, Clark enjoys reading, quilting, gardening, spending time with her 90-year-old mother, and “doing anything with Ter.”