Deborah Tilson Clark, a native Appalachian, earned a BA in English from Berea College in Berea, Kentucky. While a student there she continued to learn and develop several traditional handcraft skills that she’d initially learned at home and added hand spinning on traditional spinning wheels and making pottery to her repertoire.
Deborah has been a working journalist and fiction writer for most of her adult life. She worked as a reporter on two local newspapers, and her work has appeared in several regional magazines and journals. She taught high school English in Allegheny County, North Carolina for ten years, from which she retired to work full time as a writer.
Deborah has authored two collections of short stories, published by Human Error Publishing, with a third collection due for release this year. She is co-writer of a zine, n o t i c e:, and an active member of the Ridgeline Writers writing group.
Terry Clark grew up in Kansas and Oklahoma and served four years in the U.S. Navy before meeting and marrying a girl from the mountains.
Terry’s interest in building and in woodworking were evident at an early age, as his mother reported that he built toy cars from scrap wood at age 8, and the cedar blanket chest and armoire he built in high school are still in use in his home.
His design and constructions skills were honed at Berea College, where he worked under the guidance of master craftsmen in the school’s renowned Woodcraft Student Industry, first as a regular worker and, after only one semester, as student foreman, and finally as full-time craftsman. While earning his Bachelor of Science in Industrial Arts, Terry was mentored and his work was strongly influenced by Rude Osolnik, one of the founders of the modern crafts movement.
Terry has continued to develop his style and techniques in his workshop in Grayson County, Virginia. Recently, he has broadened his repertoire to include “Steampunk” or fantasy-industrial style pieces. These include sculptural as well as desk and floor lamps and custom-made lighting fixtures. He has said that he considers solving the “puzzle” of finding new uses for salvaged pieces; figuring out how to incorporate wiring, lights, and gauges (even though they don’t measure anything); sneaking in a touch of his particular sense of humor; and keeping a piece of his turned wood in each piece, as both a challenge and a satisfaction of his need to create.
