Writer Elizabeth Cox grew up in Chattanooga on the campus of Baylor School as Betsy Barks, daughter of Baylor Headmaster Herb Barks Sr. She attended UT from fall 1960 to fall 1961 and also attended UTC before receiving the bachelor’s degree from the University of Mississippi in 1964. She received the MFA in Writing from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro in 1979. She has published numerous poems and short stories. Her first story, “Land of Goshen,” was cited for excellence by Best American Short Stories and won a Pushcart Prize. Two of her stories have been read on National Public Radio (NPR). A collection of stories, Bargains in the Real World, was published by Random House.
She is the author of as the novels Familiar Ground, The Ragged Way People Fall out of Love, Slow Moon, and Night Talk. Night Talk won the 1998 Lillian Smith Book Award, given by the Southern Regional Council for books that raise the social consciousness and promote harmony between the races.
She taught creative writing at Duke University for 17 years and has also taught at the University of Michigan, Tufts, Boston University, MIT, and Wofford College. She was the 1983 Jack Kerouac Writer-in-Residence at the University of Massachusetts Lowell in 1983.