Known by Salt

In Known by Salt, Tina Mozelle Braziel searches for home in the trailer park where she grew up and in the house she and her husband built by hand. Aware that her homes and life fall short of social norms, she asks "how come" as she discovers grit and feminism in a strip club, a fast food joint, building sites, and family stories of work. She takes shelter in the beauty of dammed rivers, wooded hills, the swerve of snakes. This collection examines class and gender, humankind and nature, and what it takes to mend those divisions and become whole.

Alabama native Tina Mozelle Braziel, author of Known by Salt and Rooted by Thirst, was raised on the banks of the Coosa River. A first generation college student, she earned degrees at the University of Montevallo, the University of Alabama at Birmingham, and the University of Oregon. Her awards include the Philip Levine Prize for Poetry, a fellowship for the Alabama State Council for the Arts, and an artist residency at Hot Springs National Park. Currently, she directs the Ada Long Creative Writing Workshop at UAB. She and her husband, novelist James Braziel, live and write in a glass cabin that they are building by hand.