Robert Cumming is a writer and publisher who lives in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. He is the owner and publisher of The Iris Publishing Group, Inc which has two book imprints: Iris Press and Tellico Books. Iris Press, founded in 1975 in Binghamton, NY in 1975 by Patricia Wilcox, is a literary imprint which specializes in poetry and literary prose by established writers. Robert has owned this publishing company for eleven years, but has been editing texts for publications for over thirty. Iris releases between six and ten new books every year.
Cumming’s writing in recent years has focused on poetry and essays. He is active in a number of regional and national writers organizations. He now spends a lot of time in editing and evaluating other’s work, and counseling individual writers on publication matters.
Robert has two degrees in biology from the University of Florida in Gainesville. His PhD is from the University of Texas (Austin) in genetics. He has worked as a research scientist at a government national laboratory for 30 years. He has lived for significant periods in about ten states, and has spent considerable periods outside of the United States. Though he has traveled extensively in Europe, his longest visits outside of the US have been to Central and South America.
