Dennis Covington

Dennis Covington (born October 30, 1948) is an American writer. He was born in Birmingham, Alabama,^[1] studied fiction writing and earned a BA degree from the University of Virginia, then served in the U.S. Army. He earned an MFA in the early 1970s, from the Iowa Writers' Workshop studying under Raymond Carver. He taught English at the College of Wooster. He married his second wife, writer Vicki Covington, in 1977. The couple returned to Birmingham the following year, and he began teaching at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

In 1983, Dennis Covington went to El Salvador as a freelance journalist. In 2003, he became Professor of Creative Writing at Texas Tech University.^[1][2] In 2005, he was a judge for the National Book Awards.^[3]

Works

• Lizard, New York: Delacorte Press, 1991. For younger readers.
• Lasso the Moon, New York: Delacorte Press, 1995. For younger readers.
• Salvation on Sand Mountain: Snake Handling and Salvation in Southern Appalachia, Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1995, ISBN 978-0140254587
• Cleaving: The Story of a Marriage, (with Vicki Covington), New York: North Point Press, 1999.
• Redneck Riviera: Armadillos, Outlaws, and the Demise of an American Dream, New York: Counterpoint, 2004.

Criticism

'Religion Kills,' Hitchens titles a chapter with typical bravado, as though science doesn't. The history of scientific inquiry is filled with examples of incompetence, chicanery and outright torture and homicide undertaken in the name of "reason" and "progress." Yet Hitchens continues to imply that evil is the prefecture of religion rather than a resident of both secular and spiritual worlds.

• Christopher Hitchens: God is Not Great, Dennis Covington, Paste Magazine, May 9, 2007

Excerpts in anthologies

• From "Snake Handling and Redemption", The Art of Fact, Kevin Kerrane, Ben Yagoda, Simon and Schuster, 1998, ISBN 9780684846309
• From Salvation on Sand Mountain, The Oxford Book of the American South, Edward L. Ayers, Bradley C. Mittendorf, Oxford University Press US, 1997, ISBN 9780195124934

Reviews

Salvation On Sand Mountain details “war stories” of people who lived to tell of their poisonous snake bites, and of those who did not survive. Covington describes what led him to abandon snake handling during a wedding in Kingston, Georgia, where the writer discovered there’s a fine line in the world of snake-handling between faith and suicide.^[4]

References

1. ^ ^{a b} "Dennis Covington". This Goodly Land: Alabama's Literary Landscape. Alabama Center for the Book and Auburn University. May 30, 2008. http://www.alabamaliterarymap.org/author.cfm?AuthorID=134. Retrieved May 17, 2010. 
2. ^ Texas Tech, Department of English
3. ^ 2005 National Book Award Judges
4. ^ Salvation On Sand Mountain, James Calemine, Swampland.com

External references

• Down From the Mountain: An interview with author Dennis Covington, Brett Grainger, and Rose Marie Berger, Sojourners
• Dennis Covington, This Goodly Land Alabama's Literary Heritage
• From "Snake Handling and Redemption", The Art of Fact, Kevin Kerrane, Ben Yagoda, Simon and Schuster, 1998, ISBN 9780684846309

Persondata
Name	Covington, Dennis
Alternative names
Short description	Writer
Date of birth	October 30, 1948
Place of birth	Birmingham, Alabama, United States
Date of death
Place of death

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Covington"