Amy Oden Simpson

A native of Hattiesburg, Mississippi, Amy Oden Simpson taught English at Southeast Kentucky Community and Technical College for 20 years. She now serves as director of public relations and communications at that institution.

She earned her bachelor's and master's degrees from the University of Southern Mississippi, and an MFA in writing with playwriting emphasis from Spalding University in Louisville, Kentucky. She plans to graduate in 2023 with an Ed.D. in Learning and Leadership in Organizations from Vanderbilt University's Peabody College.

As a playwright, Simpson has written and staged numerous local history plays as well as plays for children, and she has co-written and directed several murder mystery dinner plays with her Middlesborough Little Theatre co-director Jessie Surber. She has served as MLT director since 2011.

Her work has appeared in the Louisville Review, Mississippi Magazine, and the American Association of Community Colleges Daily. Her children's play, ZIPPY'S CLUB, adapted Candida Sullivan's picture book of the same title. It was staged by MLT in 2014 and subsequently published by Shade Tree Press.

Simpson lives in Cumberland Gap, Tennessee with her two children, Corley and Sidney, who both experience the challenge of autism. They inspired her first children's picture book, JEREMY PLAYS THE BLUES, published in 2021 by Climbing Angel Publishing.