Tim Carmichael
Bio
Tim is an Appalachian poet and cookbook author. He writes about rural life, family, and the places he grew up around. His poetry and essays have appeared in Beautiful and Brutal Things, his latest book.
Achievements (12)
Stories (282)
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The True Story and Double Life of Billy Tipton. Top Story - June 2025.
When Billy Tipton died, the world finally noticed him—but not for his music. It was January 1989, in Spokane, Washington. Billy collapsed in the small home where he'd quietly raised a family. Paramedics arrived too late. He was 74. A jazz musician, semi-retired, father to three adopted sons, partner to a woman named Kitty. To anyone who knew him—really knew him—he was a gentle, private man who had lived a decent, ordinary life. The kind of man who made spaghetti from scratch, taught his boys to balance a checkbook, and still tinkered on the piano at night.
By Tim Carmichael8 months ago in Pride
The Locked Drawer of Emily Dickinson
For as long as I’ve been writing, Emily Dickinson has been a guiding star. Her clipped intensity, her fierce quiet, her way of saying what others circle around—I’ve spent years trying to write like that, trying to listen the way she must have listened. So, the story of how her poems nearly vanished before the world ever saw them has always struck me as not just literary history, but personal.
By Tim Carmichael8 months ago in Fiction
The Solitude of Emily Dickinson
In the upstairs bedroom of a large white house in Amherst, Massachusetts, Emily Dickinson lived most of her adult life, unseen by many and misunderstood by nearly all. She was not a ghost, though some neighbors suspected she might be one. She was not a saint, though her letters held a kind of quiet gospel. She was not crazy, as some whispered after she stopped attending church or appearing at town functions. She was simply herself—fiercely private, deeply observant, and impossible to categorize.
By Tim Carmichael9 months ago in Fiction
