Lee Cole was born and grew up in rural Kentucky and is a recent graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. His new book, Groundskeeping (Knopf) will include a March virtual reading at Joseph-Beth. “Eager to clean up his act, Owen Callahan—an aspiring writer—has just moved home to Kentucky, where he’s taken a job as a groundskeeper at a small local college. In exchange, he’s allowed to take a writing course.” 
At the beginning of the novel, he articulates the common Faulknerian (“I don’t hate it!”) writer’s dilemma, “I’ve always had the same predicament. When I’m home, in Kentucky, all I want is to leave. When I’m away, I’m homesick for a place that never was.”
