Clyde Edgerton
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Clyde Edgerton | |
|---|---|
| Born | May 20, 1944 Durham, North Carolina, U.S. |
| Occupation | Author and professor |
| Alma mater | University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill |
| Notable awards | North Carolina Award (1997) |
| Website | |
| clydeedgerton | |
Clyde Edgerton (born May 20, 1944) is an American author and academic from North Carolina. He has published a dozen books, most of them novels, three of which have been adapted for film. He was a professor at the University of North Carolina Wilmington, where he taught creative writing for 26 years .
Edgerton was born in Durham, North Carolina on May 20, 1944.[1] His parents were Truma and Ernest Edgerton, who came from families of cotton and tobacco farmers, respectively.[1] He grew up in Bethesda, Durham County, North Carolina was a fundamentalist Baptist.[2][3][4] His distant cousin is author Sylvia Wilkerson.[3]
In 1962 Edgerton enrolled at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, eventually graduating in English in 1966.[2][1] During this time he was a student in the Air Force ROTC program where he learned to fly a small plane.[4][1] After graduating, he entered the United States Air Force and served five years, from 1966 to 1971, as a fighter pilot in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War.[5][6][2][3]
After his time in service, Edgerton returned the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and graduated with Master's degree and Ph.D. in English education.[6][3] While in graduate school, he taught English at his former high school.[1]
Career
Academia
Edgerton became a teacher of English education at Campbell University in Buies Creek, North Carolina.[7][2] Because the college administration was offended by His fictional portrayal of Free Will Baptists in Raney, the novel led to a controversy that resulted in Edgerton's leaving the teaching staff at Campbell University.[7][6][3]
Edgerton then taught at St. Andrews Presbyterian College in Laurinburg, North Carolina.[6] Later, he taught and Duke University in Durham, North Carolina and at Millsaps College in Jackson, Mississippi.[6] He became a professor at the University of North Carolina Wilmington in 1998, where he taught creative writing for 26 years before retiring as the Kenan Distinguished Professor in Creative Writing in 2024.[2][4][6]
Writing
Edgerton decided to become a fiction writer on May 14, 1978 after watching Eudora Welty read a short story on public television.[2] He started out writing short stories while teaching at Campbell University.[8][2]
Edgerton's first novel, Raney, the plot of which revolves around the marriage of a Free Will Baptist and an Episcopalian, was published in 1985.[7][6] His next novel, Walking Across Egypt, was published in 1987.[6] This was followed by The Floatplane Notebooks in 1988, Killer Diller in 1991, In Memory of Junior in 1992, and Redeye: A Western in 1995.[6] Night Train, was published in 2011 and follows two friends—one White and one Black—in the segregated South of the 1960s.[9]
His novels Raney, Walking Across Egypt, and The Floatplane Notebooks were banned in some schools.[3]
Awards and honors
- Five Notable Books from The New York Times[3][1]
- Guggenheim Fellowship for Creative Arts[2][1][8]
- Lyndhurst Fellowship[1]
- Fellowship of Southern Writers[10]
- Distinguished Alumni Award from the Education Department, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill[1]
- North Carolina Award for Literature (1997)[2]
- Thomas Wolfe Prize, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2015[10][2]
- North Carolina Literary Hall of Fame (2016)[4][7]
- He has a street named after him in Kernersville, North Carolina[11][8]
- Honorary doctorate, University of North Carolina at Asheville[10]
- Honorary doctorate, St. Andrews Presbyterian College[10]
Personal life
In the later 1970s and 1980s, Edgerton lived in Apex, North Carolina.[5] He purchased a 1946 Piper Super Cruiser that he named "Annabelle" in 1989.[5] He crashed the airplane in January 1991.[5]
Edgerton is married and lives with his wife and their children in Wilmington, North Carolina.[3] He served as the chair of the Arts Council in Wilmington, North Carolina.[8] He is also a singer and songwriter.[3][10] He plays the guitar, banjo, and piano.[3]
Selected works
Novels
- Raney (Algonquin Books, 1985)
- Walking Across Egypt (1987)
- The Floatplane Notebooks (1988)
- Killer Diller (1991)
- In Memory of Junior (1992)
- Redeye (1995)
- Where Trouble Sleeps (1997)
- Lunch at the Piccadilly (2003)
- The Bible Salesman (2008)
- The Night Train (2011)
Nonfiction and memoir
- Solo: My Adventure in the Air (2005; non-fiction memoir of his fighter pilot career)[4][3]
- Papadaddy's Book for New Fathers: Advice to Dads of All Ages (2013)[10]
Short stories
- "Changing Names". New Stories from the South: The Year's Best, 1990 (Algonquin Books)[6]
