Jim Whiteside is a graduate of the creative writing MFA program at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, is a Virginia Center for the Creative Arts fellow, and is the recipient of a Tennessee Williams Scholarship from the Sewanee Writers' Conference. Jim's recent poems have appeared or will soon appear in journals such as Ploughshares, The Southern Review, Pleiades, Crazyhorse, and Washington Square Review. His first opera libretto, Higher Ground, was scored by the composer Jules Pegram and debuted at The University of Michigan in April 2018. Originally from Cookeville, Tennessee, he has recently relocated to Madison, Wisconsin.