Three University of Alabama at Birmingham faculty members were awarded $5,000 fellowship grants by the Alabama State Council on the Arts for 2012-13 based on merit of their work, career achievement and potential and service to the state. Recipients may use the money to create art, improve skills or enhance their artistic careers.

Adam Vines, assistant professor in the UAB Department of English, was awarded a fellowship for literature. He specializes in modern and contemporary poetry and creative writing. “Vines writes with authority and specificity, yet is also able to display a quality of vulnerability. His poems are accessible, solid, grounded in nature, quiet and considered,” the ASCA announcement says.

Vines is being lauded for his first book of poetry, A Coal Life, which was recently published to great reviews and named a 2012 finalist for the Miller Williams Arkansas Poetry Prize. In the book, he explores life in Alabama’s coal mining camps during the first half of the 20th century. His critically acclaimed poem “River Politics” about a fireside night of fishing, was featured in the May issue of Poetry magazine. His work also has been published in Barrow Street and North American Review as well as many other publications. This summer, Vines has been invited to read his works in Atlanta and Washington, D.C., and also will be on staff at the Sewanee’s Writer’s Conference.