Phyllis Gobbell, Nashville Author – pgobbell@bellsouth.net
Phyllis Gobbell’s writing career spans four decades and includes a little bit of everything. Her history of publication includes fiction and nonfiction, with a total of five novels and over thirty stories and articles. One of her first stories appeared in the anthology HomeWorks in 1996. The anthology featured a collection of writings by Tennessee authors living at that time, including Alex Haley, Robert Penn Warren, and Peter Taylor.
Two true-crime books, An Unfinished Canvas and A Season of Darkness, recount high-profile, cold-case murders in Nashville. Now Gobbell authors the Jordan Mayfair Mystery Series. The series begins with Pursuit in Provence, followed by Secrets and Shamrocks and Treachery in Tuscany, which won Killer Nashville’s Silver Falchion Award for Best Cozy Mystery.
Visit the Mystery Woman blog to read more stories from Phyllis Gobbell, or click on Additional Works.
Awards and Achievements
Phyllis Gobbell received the Tennessee Arts Commission’s Individual Artist Award in Fiction. Twice she received the Leslie Garrett Award for Fiction, awarded by the Knoxville Writers Guild. Other writing achievements include the Tennessee Writers Alliance Short Story First Place Award, and the North Carolina Writers’ Workshop First Place Award in Creative Nonfiction. She received a Pushcart nomination for her story, “Primates,” which was published in Bellevue Literary Review. She won the Creative Nonfiction First Place Award from the Knoxville Writers’ Guild for her essay, “In the Car with Mother on Christmas Eve.”
An active participant in the writing community, Phyllis Gobbell helped organize the Tennessee Writers Alliance in 1990. She served on its Board of Directors for ten years, including two terms as president and one as chair of the Board. She was also a founding member of the Nashville Writers Alliance that still meets every Tuesday night.
Education and Career
Gobbell earned her B.S. in Education at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville and received her M.A. in English from Austin Peay State University. Her thesis consisted of a collection of stories entitled Listen to Me. Most of the stories have been published in literary journals and received awards.
For twenty years, Phyllis Gobbell served on the English faculty at Nashville State Community College as Associate Professor. She taught courses in composition, creative writing, and literature. She also served as editor of the literary magazine, Tetrahedra, for eight years.