For information about the former footballer, see Greg Downs (footballer)

Greg Downs (footballer)

Gregory Downs is a former professional English footballer. Originally a centre-forward, he switched to left full-back early in his career....

Greg Downs (born November 22, 1971) is the author

Author

An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...

 of the Flannery O'Connor Award

Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction

The Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction is an annual prize awarded by the University of Georgia Press named in honor of the American short story writer and novelist Flannery O'Connor....

-winning short story collection, Spit Baths published in 2006 by the University of Georgia Press

University of Georgia Press

The University of Georgia Press or UGA Press is a publishing house and is a member of the Association of American University Presses.Founded in 1938, the UGA Press is a division of the University of Georgia and is located on the campus in Athens, Georgia, USA...

 and of the history book Declarations of Dependence published in 2011 by the University of North Carolina Press

University of North Carolina Press

The University of North Carolina Press , founded in 1922, is a university press that is part of the University of North Carolina....

. Spit Baths has been called "masterful" and "rich and mesmerizing" by the Philadelphia Inquirer; a "founding myth for a racially integrated South" by the San Francisco Chronicle; and a "luminous new collection" by Small Spiral Notebook. Downs' stories have been published in literary magazines like the Black Warrior Review, Glimmer Train

Glimmer Train

Glimmer Train is an American literary journal founded in 1990 in Portland, Oregon. It is published quarterly.-Past contributors:* Brad Barkley* Charles Baxter* Ron Carlson* Greg Downs* Peter Selgin* Andre Dubus III* Aaron Gwyn* Noy Holland...

, Meridian, The Greensboro Review, Chicago Reader, CutBank, The South Dakota Review, The Southeast Review, The Literary Review, Wind, storySouth

StorySouth

storySouth is an online quarterly literary magazine that publishes fiction, poetry, criticism, essays, and visual artwork, with a focus on the Southern United States. The journal also runs the annual Million Writers Award to select the best short stories published each year in online magazines or...

, Philadelphia Stories, Sycamore Review, New Letters, Madison Review, and Witness. He graduated from the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop

Iowa Writers' Workshop

The Program in Creative Writing, more commonly known as the Iowa Writers' Workshop, at the University of Iowa in Iowa City, Iowa, is a highly regarded graduate-level creative writing program in the United States...

, which awarded him a James Michener/Copernicus Society of America fellowship.

Downs, born in San Francisco, was raised in his mother's native Elizabethtown

Elizabethtown, Kentucky

Elizabethtown is a city in and the county seat of Hardin County, Kentucky, United States. The population was 28,531 at the 2010 census, making it the eleventh-largest city in the state...

 and Hyden

Hyden, Kentucky

Hyden is a city in Leslie County, Kentucky, United States. The population was 365 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Leslie County. It is located at the junction of U.S. Route 421 and Kentucky Route 80, along the Middle Fork of the Kentucky River....

, Kentucky

Kentucky

The Commonwealth of Kentucky is a state located in the East Central United States of America. As classified by the United States Census Bureau, Kentucky is a Southern state, more specifically in the East South Central region. Kentucky is one of four U.S. states constituted as a commonwealth...

; Nashville

Nashville, Tennessee

Nashville is the capital of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the county seat of Davidson County. It is located on the Cumberland River in Davidson County, in the north-central part of the state. The city is a center for the health care, publishing, banking and transportation industries, and is home...

; and Kapaa, Kauai

Kauai County, Hawaii

Kauai County is a county located in the U.S. state of Hawaii. It consists of the islands of Kauai, Niihau, Lehua, and Kaula, in the state of Hawaii. As of 2000 Census the population was 58,463...

, Hawaii

Hawaii

Hawaii is the newest of the 50 U.S. states , and is the only U.S. state made up entirely of islands. It is the northernmost island group in Polynesia, occupying most of an archipelago in the central Pacific Ocean, southwest of the continental United States, southeast of Japan, and northeast of...

. His writing has been called "thoroughly original and completely authentic" by fellow Kentucky native Fenton Johnson

Fenton Johnson

John Fenton Johnson was born ninth of nine children into a Kentucky whiskey-making family with a strong storytelling tradition.-Life:His most recent book Keeping Faith: A Skeptic's Journey draws on time spent living as a member of the monastic communities of the Trappist Abbey of Gethsemani in...

. He is the grandson of noted virologist and naturalist Wilbur G. Downs

Wilbur Downs

Wilbur George Downs was a naturalist and virologist. He was born 7 August 1913 in Perth Amboy, New Jersey and died in Branford, Connecticut, 17 February 1991.-Career:...

. He is a B.A. graduate of Yale University

Yale University

Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...

, where his advisor was Bancroft Prize

Bancroft Prize

The Bancroft Prize is awarded each year by the trustees of Columbia University for books about diplomacy or the history of the Americas. It was established in 1948 by a bequest from Frederic Bancroft...

-winning historian Melvin Patrick Ely

Melvin Patrick Ely

-Life:He grew up in Richmond.He graduated from Princeton University, and from the University of Texas with a master's degree in linguistics, and from Princeton University with a master’s degree in history in 1982 and with a doctoral degree in 1985....

.

Along with his fiction writing, Downs is also an historian, with a Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania

University of Pennsylvania

The University of Pennsylvania is a private, Ivy League university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Penn is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States,Penn is the fourth-oldest using the founding dates claimed by each institution...

, where his dissertation supervisor was Pulitzer-Prize winning historian Steven Hahn

Steven Hahn

Steven Hahn is the Roy F. and Jeannette P. Nichols Professor in American History at the University of Pennsylvania.-Life:Educated at the University of Rochester, where he worked with Eugene Genovese and Herbert Gutman, Hahn received his Ph.D. from Yale University. His dissertation was overseen by...

. He studies 19th century American political culture, and is an Assistant Professor at the City College of New York

City College of New York

The City College of the City University of New York is a senior college of the City University of New York , in New York City. It is also the oldest of the City University's twenty-three institutions of higher learning...

. Declarations of Dependence was called "brilliant, imaginative, and deeply researched" by historian Scott Nelson

Scott Reynolds Nelson

Scott Reynolds Nelson is the Legum Professor of History at the College of William and Mary. He is a historian of the American Civil War and the Gilded Age...

, a "rare achievement" by historian Laura Edwards, and a "carefully crafted and deeply researched study" by Civil War historian James M. McPherson

James M. McPherson

James M. McPherson is an American Civil War historian, and is the George Henry Davis '86 Professor Emeritus of United States History at Princeton University. He received the 1989 Pulitzer Prize for Battle Cry of Freedom, his most famous book...

.