Ken Slone is a professor of English at Big Sandy Community and Technical College in eastern Kentucky where he received the Great Teacher Award in 1999 for teaching his students to take pride in their Appalachian heritage and to write from their hearts.

After earning his graduate degree from Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio, he returned to his home county of Johnson where he lives with wife Debbie and his children, Beth and Stephen.

A native of Johnson County, Slone grew up in the east Kentucky mountains near Paintsville, Kentucky, and from earliest childhood began to absorb the essences of the region that would later be distilled in his poetry.