Erin Hoover

Erin Hoover is a poet, author, educator, and the inaugural Poet Laureate of Cookeville, Tennessee.

She is the author of three poetry collections: Barnburner (Elixir Press, 2018), No Spare People (Black Lawrence Press, 2023), and Consent, forthcoming from Black Lawrence Press in May 2027. She was born and raised in central Pennsylvania and lives in middle Tennessee with her family.

Books

Her debut, Barnburner, was selected by Kathryn Nuernberger for Elixir Press’s Antivenom Award and won a Florida Book Award in Poetry. No Spare People followed in 2023 from Black Lawrence Press. Her poems have appeared in The Best American Poetry and in journals including Prairie Schooner, Alaska Quarterly Review, Harvard Review, Narrative, The Sun, Cincinnati Review, Poetry Northwest and Shenandoah. You can read ten poems here.

Teaching

Hoover is an associate professor of English at Tennessee Tech University, where she teaches creative writing, literature and academic writing with a focus on poetry. She teaches the Iris Review editing practicum and advises the university’s Certificate in Editing and Publishing. Her proposal for a Digital Publishing Lab at Tennessee Tech won a Faculty Academy Grant in 2023.

She previously taught at Hendrix College as the Murphy Visiting Fellow in Poetry, and for six years at Florida State University, first as a graduate instructor and then as full-time visiting teaching faculty. Her students have won prizes from the Southern Literary Festival and the National Federation of State Poetry Societies.

Editing and editorial work

Hoover was editor-in-chief of the Southeast Review from 2014 to 2016, part of four years on the journal’s editorial staff. She produces the “Not Abandon, But Abide” interview series for Southern Review of Books. In 2011 she co-founded Late Night Library, a nonprofit supporting book culture and early-career writers, which ran until 2017.

Alongside teaching she has worked as an editor, journalist, fundraiser and public relations director, including three years as communications director at City Harvest and a year as senior staff writer at Rowland Publishing.

Poet Laureate of Cookeville

Hoover serves as the inaugural Poet Laureate of Cookeville, Tennessee, through December 31, 2027. In Cookeville she curates and hosts Sawmill Poetry, a free reading series at Plenty Downtown Bookshop. In 2025 she was program chair for the Appalachian Studies Association Conference, hosted that year at Tennessee Tech.