Terry Roberts is the celebrated author of A Short Time to Stay Here, That Bright Land, The Holy Ghost Speakeasy and Revival, My Mistress' Eyes are Raven Black, The Sky Club, The Devil Hath a Pleasing Shape, and In the Fullness of Time. Roberts is a lifelong teacher and educational reformer as well as an award-winning novelist. He is a native of the mountains of Western North Carolina whose ancestors include six generations of mountain farmers, as well as the bootleggers and preachers who appear in his novels. He was raised close by his grandmother, Belva Anderson Roberts, who was born in 1888 and passed to him the magic of the past along with the grit and humor of mountain storytelling.