About the Author

Wes Blake is the author of PINEVILLE TRACE—winner of the Etchings Press Novella Prize, featured on Deep South Magazine’s Reading List, Publishers Weekly BookLife Editor’s Pick, finalist for the Next Generation Indie Book Award for First Novel, Feathered Quill Book Award for Debut Author, National Indie Excellence Award for Book Cover Design, and distinguished favorite for the Independent Press Award for Literary Fiction & Audiobook—from the University of Indianapolis’ Etchings Press (2024). Pulitzer Prize finalist author Lee Martin called him a “writer to watch," and SmokeLong Quarterly described his debut novel as an “utterly compelling read.”

His novel manuscript ANTENNA was a semifinalist for the University Of New Orleans (UNO) Press Book Prize and Sundress Publications Prose Open Reading Period. Wes' memoir of place-in-essays HAZELGREEN AND OTHER HAUNTS was a finalist for the 2026 River Teeth Literary Nonficiton Book Prize, semifinalist for the 2025 Autumn House Press Nonfiction Prize, and semifinalist for the Ohio State University Non/Fiction Collection Prize. His fiction, essays, reviews, and interviews have appeared in Electric Literature, Appalachian Journal, Southern Review of Books, Los Angeles Review, storySouth, Untelling, JMWW, Louisiana Literature Journal, Blood & Bourbon, Book of Matches, Jelly Bucket, and White Wall Review, among others.

Wes is part of the visiting faculty at the Bluegrass Writers Studio MFA program in creative writing at Eastern Kentucky University. He studied writing under Gurney Norman, James Baker Hall, Julie Hensley, R. Dean Johnson—and very briefly under Denis Johnson. He has written obituaries, worked in a Cajun restaurant, sold advertising, and taught writing to high school and college students. He lives in Nonesuch, Kentucky, with his wife and cats, where they’ve planted 100 trees. Learn more at wesblake.com or follow Wes on Instagram @wesblake_ .