EDUCATION
Ph.D. University of Tennessee.  Granted December 1990.
M.A.  University of Tennessee.  Granted June 1986.
B.S. University of Tennessee.  Granted December 1978.

M.A. Thesis:  “Selfhood and Interconnection in the Poetry and Novels of Robert Penn
Warren.”  Directed by Robert Y. Drake.
Ph.D.   Dissertation:  “Companion to Owls:  Robert Penn Warren and the Literature of
Knowledge.”  Directed by Robert Y. Drake.

TEACHING EXPERIENCE

Date                       Title                                                                                           Institution
Currently        Professor of English                                                            State University of West Georgia
2001-2002    Professor and Associate VP for Academic Affairs               State Univeristy of West Georgia
1995-2001   Associate Professor of English                                              State University of West Georgia
1992-1995   Assistant Professor of English                                               West Georgia College, English

Courses Taught
      ENGL 1101 English Composition I (numerous sections, including a pre-engineering Learning Community)
      ENGL 1102 English Composition II (numberous sections, including a pre-engineering Learning Communtiy)
      ENGL 2130 American Literature (both general population and Honors sections)
      ENGL 2300 Practical Citicism:  Research and Methodology
      ENGL 3300 Studies in American Culture
      ENGL 4106 Studies in Genre:  Fiction
      ENGL 4140/5140 American Romanticism
      ENGL 4160/5160 Twentieth Century American Literature
      ENGL 4180/5180  Studies in Regional Literature:  Southern Literature
      ENGL 4188/5188 Individual Authors:  Faulkner
      ENGL 4190 Literature for Teachers (no longer offered)
      ENGL 4210 Advanced Creative Writing (scheduled for spring 2004)
      ENGL 4384 Senior Seminar:  Regional Perspectives in Literature
      ENGL 6110 Seminar in American Literature I:  Herman Melville—Then and Now
      ENGL 6120 Seminar in American Literature II:  Robert Penn Warren and the
                                                 Changing South
      The following courses were taught prior to the University's conversion to the semester system.
      ENG 446/646    American Realism and Naturalism
      ENG 802           Special Topics Seminar in American Literature:  Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson
      ENG 852           Seminar in American Realism
      ENG 809           Seminar in American Literature II:  Faulkner and Warren

Master’s Committees (16 students in English, 1 M.Ed., Major professor for 5)
Supervisor for 6 graduate assistants (2 teaching, 4 research)

PROFESSIONAL WORK AND SCHOLARSHIP:

Membership and offices in Professional Societies:
Modern Language Association
American Literature Association
Society for the Study of Southern Literature
South Atlantic Modern Language Association
Robert Penn Warren Circle
    Advisory Board Member
    Assistant Program Chair 2000-2001
    Program Chair 2002
    Vice President 2002-2003
    President 2003-2004

Publications:

Books Authored
The Twelfth Year and Other Times (short stories).  Mercer UP.  2003.
    Nominated for Georgia Author of the Year (2003) in Short Fiction
    Nominated for Townsend Award for Fiction

“Lonelier than God”:  Robert Penn Warren and the Southern Exile.  Athens: The U of Georgia P, 2000.

Books Edited
Selected Letters of Robert Penn Warren. Volume 3.  Triumph and Transition, 1943-1952.  with James A. Perkins and William Bedford Clark.  (scheduled for publication by LSU Press, Fall 2005).

David Madden:  A Writer for All Genres.  with James A. Perkins.  (forthcoming)  U of Tennessee P.

Drake, Robert.  “For the Record”:  A Robert Drake Reader.  Eds. Randy Hendricks and James A. Perkins.  Macon:  Mercer UP.  2000.

Scholarly Articles
“Warren’s Wandering Son.”  South Atlantic Review 59.2 (1994):  75-93.

“Warren’s Wilderness and the Defining If.”  Mississippi Quarterly 48.1 (Winter 1994-95):  115-131.

“The Wanderer Confronts Home:  A Pattern of Storytelling in Modern Southern Fiction.”  West Georgia College Review.  20 (May 1990):  35-41.

Review Essays
“A Gentle Quarrel with Readers:  Robert Drake’s Fiction.” Review of The Picture Frame and Other Stories.   By Robert Drake. Christianity and Literature 50 (Winter 2001): 327-38.

“A Record of Revision:  The Collected Poems of Robert Penn Warren.”  Ed. John Burt.  Kennesaw Review.  Online.  Internet.  May 2000.  Available http://www.mindspring.com/~bjhill/kr/hendrick.htm.

Book Reviews
What Will You Do for an Encore? and Other Stories.  By Robert Drake.  Christianity and Literature 46 (Winter 1997): 221-223.

Sylvia Plath:  The Wound and the Cure of Words.  By Steven Gould Axelrod.  Notes on Contemporary Literature 21.4 (1991):  5-7.

Thomas Berger.  By Brooks Landon.  Notes on Contemporary Literature 20.2 (1990):  5-6.

Other Publications
“Playing Soldier.” (essay) Humanities in the South  (October 2000): 6-9.

“Hay Metaphor” (poem). The Distillery 3.2 (Summer  1996): 4-5.

“Three Prayers” (poem).  The Eclectic (1997): 109-10.

“Infant Mortality Discovered in Mountain Graveyard”  (poem). The Eclectic (1994): 75-76.

“The Christmas Program that Almost Wasn’t, Or What Miss Pearl Wanted, Miss Pearl Got.”  Times-Georgian (Carrollton) 25-26 December, 1987, C1-2.

“The Battle for the Beautiful Fruit” (poem).  Southline (Autumn 1980):  15.

“The Long Walk” (short story).  Southline (Sepetember/October 1979):  10-13+.

Papers Read:
"God as a Problem of Language in Robert Penn Warren."  Society for the Study of Southern Literature  2004 Conference.  University of North Carolina.  Chapel Hill, NC, March 27, 2004.

"Exile and Return in Southern Literature.”  South Atlantic Modern Language Association.  Birmingham, Alabama.  10-12 November 2000.

“The Reflexive Nature of Brother to Dragons.”  Annual Meeting of the Robert Penn Warren Circle.   Western Kentucky University.  Bowling Green, Kentucky, 14 April 2000.

“Confronting Home:  A Narrative Pattern in Welty, O’Connor, and Walker.” Southern Writers Symposium.  Methodist College.  Fayetteville, North Carolina, 19 September 1998.  Also presented at Conference on Writing the Rural. Brewton-Parker College,  Mt. Vernon, Georgia, 24 October 1997.

“Crazy about Melville:  A Precedent for Warren’s Poetic Irony.” Joint Meeting of the Herman Melville Society and the Robert Penn Warren Circle.  North Adams State College.  North Adams, Massachusetts.  August 1-4, 1996.

“‘Lonelier than God’: The Southern Exile and A Place to Come To.  American Literature Association Annual Convention.  Baltimore, Maryland, 25 May 1995.

“Warren’s Segregation:  The Personal Essay as Social Document.”  Annual Symposium of the Robert Penn Warren Circle.  Bowling Green, Kentucky, 22 April 1994.  Earlier version presented at West Georgia College International Conference on Discovery, Atlanta, Georgia, 17 October 1992.

“Robert Penn Warren:  Outsider.”  Robert Penn Waren Commemorative Celebration.  St. Louis, Missouri, 1 Martch 1991.

“The Wanderer in Twentieth-Century Southern Literature.”  West Georgia College International Conference on The Outsider.  Atlanta, Georgia, 29 October, 1988.

“Popular Agrarian Images and Twentieth-Century Southern Literature.”  Conference of the Popular Culture Association in the South.  Knoxville, Tennessee, 6 October 1988.

“Image and Imagination in Three Poems by Robert Penn Warren.”  Robert Penn Warren:  A Hometown Symposium.  Clarksville, Tennessee, 15 October 1988.

“Polar Views of Male Experience in The Country of the Pointed Firs.”  Sarah Orne Jewett:  A Writer of Our Time.  Portland, Maine, 17 June 1985.

Other Readings and Talks
Bleasby Colloquium.  Westminster College.  New Wilmington, Pennsylvania.  18 Septemer 2003.

“The Twelfth Year.”  Short story presented at Benefit Reading co-sponsored by Share our Strength and Eclectic.  State University of West Georgia, Carrollton, Georgia.  4 March 1999.

Panel Member for Roundtable episode, “Is the South Losing Its Identity?” WWGC Channel 13.  29 October 1997.

“Night Drive with Father.” Poem read at Writer’s Harvest:  The National Reading (an anti-hunger and literacy campaign).  Carrollton, Georgia.  December 1996.

Discussion Leader:  L. Frank Baum’s The Wizard of Oz (20 April 1995), Nicholas Lemann’s The Promised Land (4 May 1995), Donald Davidson, et al.,  I’ll Take My Stand (8 May 1995), and Erskine Caldwell’s Tobacco Road (1 June 1995).  Neva Lomason Library.  Carrollton, Georgia.  The discussion groups were conducted in conjunction with the sumposium “A Legacy of State’s Rights and Regionalism.”  Atlanta History Center.  Atlanta, Georgia, 24-25 March 1995.

Panel Member for Newnan-Coweta County Historical Society symposium “Welcome Home Erskine Caldwell.”  Newnan, Georgia, 17 November 1992.  (Notes in archives of Erskine Caldwell Museum, Moreland, Georgia.)
 

Conferences Directed
Twelfth Annual Meeting of the Robert Penn Warren Circle.  Western Kentucky University.  Bowling Green, Kentucky, 19-21 April 2002.

Panels Chaired
Special Session on All the King's Men.  Annual Meeting of the Robert Penn Warren Circle.  Western Kentucky University.  Bowling Green, Kentucky.  20 April 2002.

Warren and Postmodernism.  Annual Convention of the South Atlantic Modern Language Association.  Atlanta, Georgia.  10 November 2001.

Working within the System:  Progressive Strategies for Regressive Curriculum.  Spring Conference of the National Council of Teachers of English.  Charleston, South Carolina.  7 April 1989.

Faulkner II.  International Conference on The Outsider in Literature, Philosophy and the Visual Arts. Atlanta, Georgia.  29 October 1988.

Other Professional Service
Reviewer of articles submitted for publication for South Atlantic Review, Christiantity and Literature, and JAISA (Journal of the Association for the Interdisciplinary Study of the Arts).

Reviewer of book manuscripts for Mercer University Press.

Works in Progress

Editor, with James A. Perkins.  David Madden:  A Collection of Critical Essays.

Editor, with James A. Perkins.  Selected Letters of Robert Penn Warren.  Volume 3.  Contract to publish with LSU Press, schedule 2005.

"The 'You' in Alice Walker's 'Everyday Use.'" (article)

"Warren's Bartleby:  A Reading of "Her Own People." (article)

Greens As Slick As Time (volume of poems)

A Gift to Fail (novel)

When the Spider Writes Your Name (novel)

"Into History:  Ethics, Identity, and Crisis in America" (essay)
 
 
 

Administration

Administrative Positions Held (all at State University of West Georgia)
2001-2002 Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs
1997-2001 Associate Chair, Department of English and Philosophy
1995-1997 Coordinator of American Studies Minor
1989-1992 Coordinator of Developmental Studies in English

Committee Membership
University-wide Committees:
2003-2004    General Education Council
1999-2002     Teacher Education Advisory Committee (TEAC), co-chair 1999-2000.
Spring 2001       Search Committee, Dean of College of Education
Spring 2001       West Georgia Institutional Team for April 5-6 Meeting in Savannah on Educator Preparation
1999-2000        Writing Across the Curriculum Executive Committee
Spring 2000       Search Committee for position in Secondary English Education, College of Education
1998-99            Ad-hoc Committee on Faculty Work Load, College of Arts and Sciences
1996-1999        Faculty Senate
1997-98            Committee on Graduate Studies
1996-1999        Intercollegiate Athletics Committee (Chair 1997-98)
1993-94           American Studies Committee
1991-93           School of Arts & Sciences Advisory Committee
1991-92           Intercollegiate Athletics Committee for SACS Self-Study
Department Committees:
2003-2004    Graduate Program Committee
2003-2004    Three search committees, chair for one
2002-2003    Graduate Program Committee (chair)
2002-2003    Curriculum
2002-2003    Search Committee for Position in Poetry
Spring 2001   Ad-Hoc Committee on First Year Writing Policies
1999-2000    Search Committee for Position in American Romanticism, Chair
1995-present Faculty Status Committee, Chair 1999-2000
1997-2001    Curriculum Committee (ex officio)
1997-1999    Graduate Program Committee
1995-97        Curriculum Committee
1993-94        Policy group committees for English 498, 301, and 299 (Chair)
1993-94        Graduate Program Committee
1992-93         Freshman Writing Committee
1987-88         Freshman English Textbook Selection Committee
1987-88         Developmental English Textbook Selection Committee

Counseling Experience:
Regular advisor of 13-14 English Majors
Frequent advisor for New Student Orientation
New-Faculty Peer Mentor, 1994-95; 2003-05
Attended and advised English Department on Writing Across the Curriculum Conference, Winter 1993.
Consultant to WGC Vice President for adapting English 101 to telecourse format, Fall 1991.
Technical Advisor for “A Dramatic Tribute to Black Writers,” West Georgia College, 1988.

Participation in Educational Activities:
Panelist.  Cobb County (Georgia) High School English Division Inservice (on expectation for college-level English)  Cambell High School.  Smyrna, Georgia.
        March 15, 2002.
“The Literature of the Old South:  The Truths and the Myths.”  Presentation for McDaniel-Curtis Camp 165, Sons of Confederate Veterans, Carrollton, GA.  20
        March 2000
Judge for 1998 Kay Magenheimer Poetry Award (Eclectic), State University of West Georgia.
Cross-lectured in History 441, History of U.S. Society and Thought Since 1865, Winter 1994.
Presentations on Robert Drake’s “Amazing Grace” to two adult Sunday school classes, First United Methodist Church, Carrollton, 1993-94.
Co-organizer English Department Ideas Group Forum, 1990-92.
Judge for Carrollton Parks & Recreation Creative Writing Contest, 1990.

HONORS, AWARDS, GRANTS
Nominee:  Georgia Author of the Year Award, 2003 (The Twelfth Year, and Other Times)
Nominee:  Townsend Award for Fiction, 2002-2003 (The Twelfth Year, and Other Times)
Subvention Grants for Publication of For the Record:  A Robert Drake Reader, 2000
            Hodges Better English Fund, University of Tennessee,     $1,250
            Wesminster College                                                          1,250
            State Univ. of West Georgia                                                500
STEP/P-16 Collaborative Research Grant (with Dr. Cher Chester, State Univ. of West Georgia, College of Education, and Kim Fraker, Paulding County High
            School)  $2000, 1999-2000
Faculty Research Grant, State Univ. of West Georgia, Learning Resources Committee $700, 1998-99
Teaching Assistantship, University of Tennessee, 1985-87.
“The Gray-Speckled Mare of Garhen Forest.”  First Place, Children’s Story Division, Cookville (Tennessee) Creative Writer’s Association, 1985.
“Mrs. Rose’s Touchdown.”  Third Place, Mainstream Fiction Division. Cookville (Tennessee) Creative Writer’s Association, 1985.
“Raphael’s Narrative Voice in Paradise Lost.”  Graduate seminar paper nominated for John C. Hodges Award, University of Tennessee, 1984
“The Foreseeing Dream.”  Blanche Morton Literary Award for Fiction, Hiwassee College, 1976.