Clyde Edgerton

North Carolina · born or raisedBorn 1944

American author and Creative Writing professor

Born in Durham
Studied at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Studied at Southern School of Energy and Sustainability

Quotations with a citation

I think that I almost unconsciously hold on to the fact that as a child in my church I felt protected, felt the warmth of people older than me. They were like aunts and uncles in many ways, even though I was afraid of the anger and loudness in many of the sermons. I felt protected from the anger of God by the warmth of the adults.

Because religion was one of the most serious aspects of my early life and because I believe that humor is one of the human stays against chaos, I end up mixing humor and religion.

Fiction writers are still dealing with that species of animal called human in a hot place where there's plenty of reactionary fundamentalism and family loyalty and a history of living close to the land, along with a poverty that often finds little hope in the promise of America.

It's always a bit of a downer for me when those not from the South start talking about front porches and sweet iced tea and quirky characters. I visualize the caricatured life and predict the next string of dead mule generalizations.

The right detail can bring life to a scene, and the wrong one in a story may distract a reader and mute the writer's intention.