JOSEPH BATHANTI was born and raised in Pittsburgh, PA. He has BA & MA degrees in English Literature from the University of Pittsburgh, as well as an MFA in Creative Writing from Warren Wilson College. Bathanti came to North Carolina as a VISTA Volunteer in 1976 to work with prison inmates. He is Professor of Creative Writing at Appalachian State University in Boone, NC.

Bathanti is the author of six books of poetry: Communion Partners; Anson County; The Feast of All Saints; This Metal, which was nominated for The National Book Award, and won the 1997 Oscar Arnold Young Award from The North Carolina Poetry Council for best book of poems by a North Carolina writer; Land of Amnesia, from Press 53 in 2009; and, Restoring Sacred Art, from Star Cloud Press, winner of the 2010 Roanoke Chowan Prize, awarded annually by the North Carolina Literary and Historical Association for best book of poetry in a given year.

His first novel, East Liberty, winner of the Carolina Novel Award, was published in 2001 by Banks Channel Books in Wilmington, NC. His latest novel, Coventry, winner of the 2006 Novello Literary Award, was published by Novello Festival Press in Charlotte, NC. They Changed the State: The Legacy of North Carolina’s Visiting Artists, 1971-1995, his book of nonfiction, was published in early 2007. His collection of short stories, The High Heart, winner of the 2006 Spokane Prize, was published by Eastern Washington University Press in Fall 2007.

Bathanti's poetry, fiction and nonfiction have appeared in Shenandoah, The Cincinnati Review, New Letters, The Progressive, Manhattan Poetry Review, The Nebraska Review, Carolina Quarterly, America, The Pittsburgh Quarterly, Louisiana Literature, The Sun, North Dakota Quarterly, The Texas Review, California Quarterly, West Branch, Southern Humanities Review, South Dakota Review, Kentucky Poetry Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, Southern Poetry Review, The Hollins Critic, Tar River Poetry, South Carolina Review and many others.

His one-act play, Afomo, won The Wachovia Playwrights Prize, The Playwrights Fund of North Carolina Prize and was produced by the Lab Theatre of the University of Tennessee at Knoxville. He has been nominated for Pushcart Prizes in short fiction, poetry and creative nonfiction.

He is the recipient of Literature Fellowships from the North Carolina Arts Council in 1994 (for poetry) and 2009 (for fiction); The Samuel Talmadge Ragan Award, presented annually for outstanding contributions to the Fine Arts of North Carolina over an extended period; a Fellowship from The Witter Bynner Foundation for Poetry; the Bruno Arcudi Literature Prize; the Ernest A Lynton Faculty Award for Professional Service and Academic Outreach; the Aniello Lauri Award for Creative Writing (in 2001 and 2007); the Linda Flowers Prize; the Sherwood Anderson Award; the Barbara Mandigo Kelly Peace Poetry Prize; the 2011 Donald Murray Prize and others.