Judson Mitcham

Georgia poet and novelist Judson Mitcham studied psychology as an undergraduate and earned a PhD in psychology from the University of Georgia. His elegiac poems, first-person narratives, explore family relationships, the passing of loved ones, and the Georgia landscape. His collections of poetry include Somewhere in Ecclesiastes (1991), winner of the Devins Award, This April Day (2003), and A Little Salvation: Poems Old and New (2007). 

Mitcham is also the author of the novels The Sweet Everlasting (1996) and Sabbath Creek (2004). He has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Georgia Council for the Arts and has twice won the Townsend Prize for fiction.

Mitcham taught psychology at Fort Valley State University in Fort Valley, Georgia, until his retirement. He has since taught creative writing workshops at the University of Georgia, Emory University, and Mercer University. He lives in Macon, Georgia. In 2012, the governor of Georgia named him the state’s poet laureate.