A poet and artist hailing from Blytheville, Arkansas, Chad A. Gurley graduated from Vanderbilt Divinity School and Harding University living life's questions. Chad began blogging and creating digital art in NYC right before 9/11. After witnessing that tragedy and the trauma of violent loss, Chad began writing poetry and short stories and creating digital art to witness life out loud and to promote peace, hope, and understanding.

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Chad's poetry, fiction, and hand-drawn digital art have found a warm reception over the years, appearing in a range of publications and exhibitions and earning recognition along the way, including an award nomination for one of his short stories. Chad is presently working on a poetry memoir entitled 49 thin lines.

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These days Chad is carrying that same instinct — to witness life out loud, to sit close to grief and hope at once — into a new form: he is completing Clinical Pastoral Education, training to become a chaplain. Where the art and the poems once reached toward strangers through a page or a gallery wall, offering peace, hope, and understanding at a distance, Chad's chaplaincy work brings him to an actual hospital bedside, where peace, hope, and understanding are no longer created, but embodied.