Terry Roberts (novelist and educator) explained

Birth Date:30 July 1956
Birth Place:Asheville, North Carolina, U.S.
Nationality:American
Occupation:Educator and Novelist

Terry Lee Roberts (born July 30, 1956) is an American educator and novelist. He has written extensively about American public education, specifically the teaching of critical and creative thinking via Socratic discussion. He is also the author of five novels, most of which flow out of his heritage in southern Appalachia.[1] [2] He lives in Asheville, North Carolina with his wife, Lynn.[3]

Early life and education

Roberts was born in Asheville, North Carolina in 1956[4] and lived near the small mountain town of Weaverville.[5] He went to local public schools and earned degrees from the University of North Carolina at Asheville (BA), Duke University (MAT), and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (PhD). His family has lived in the mountains of Western North Carolina since the American Revolutionary War,[6] farming in Madison County, North Carolina along the French Broad River. The town of Hot Springs in Madison county is a setting in his novels.[7]

Career

After earning an MAT from Duke University in 1979, Roberts taught high school English for nine years before returning to graduate school at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he earned a PhD with a dissertation on the fiction of Elizabeth Spencer.[8] He is also a scholar of John Ehle and Thomas Wolfe.

Since 1992, he has served as Director of the National Paideia Center,[9] an educational reform institute devoted to creating schools that are both more rigorous and more equitable. During his time at the Paideia Center, Roberts has served as a consultant on the role of socratic seminar dialogue in the classroom,[10] educational leadership and organizational development. He has written extensively about classroom instruction and, increasingly, about teaching critical and creative thinking in the context of an expanded definition of literacy.[11]

Around 2005, Roberts began to write fiction inspired by the power of the past among people living in the southern Appalachian mountains.[8] His first novel, A Short Time to Stay Here, is set in the mountain community of Hot Springs, North Carolina, during World War I at the time that an internment camp of German detainees was established there, and focuses on the intersection of cultures.[8] A Short Time to Stay Here won the Willie Morris Award for Southern Fiction,[12] and the Sir Walter Raleigh Award for Fiction given annually for the best novel by a North Carolinian.[13] [3] His second, That Bright Land, is set just after the Civil War, and focuses on the deep divisions[14] within a community struggling to recover from the war.[15] It won the Thomas Wolfe Memorial Literary Award[16] [17] and the James Still Award for Writing about the Appalachian South. His third novel is The Holy Ghost Speakeasy and Revival. His fourth is My Mistress' Eyes Are Raven Black, a thriller set on Ellis Island in 1920.[18] It was a 2022 International Thriller Writers Awards finalist in the Best Paperback Original category.[19] Terry Roberts' fifth novel, published in July 2022, is "The Sky Club", a novel set in Asheville, North Carolina in the late 1920s and early 1930s at the time of the financial crash.[20]

In 2019, Roberts was elected to membership in the North Caroliniana Society[21] for his contributions to North Carolina's heritage.[22] The same year, he was appointed President of the Thomas Wolfe Society, an association of scholars of the writer Thomas Wolfe.[23] In 2021, Roberts was named a Director of the North Caroliniana Society.[24]

Awards

Publications

Novels

Literary Criticism

Education

Articles

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Roberts looks to 'gentle strength' when writing about Appalachia and its people . Littleton . Wade . Citizen Tribune, Morristown TN . 2019 . February 9, 2020.
  2. Web site: James Still Award for Writing about the Appalachian South . The Fellowship of Southern Writers . 2017 . February 9, 2020.
  3. Web site: Terry Roberts Author . Terry Roberts . 2019 . April 6, 2020.
  4. Book: Roberts , Terry . 2016 . hardcover . That Bright Land . iv . Nashville, TN . Turner . 978-1-63026-976-0.
  5. Is Thomas Wolfe Appalachian? . Asa Annual Conference . Section: "At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #2" . Appalachian Studies Association Conference Bulletin . 2019 . February 12, 2020. Johnson . Brandon . Roberts . Terry . Caldwell . Wayne .
  6. Web site: First Families of Old Buncombe . Old Buncombe County Genealogical Society . 2020 . February 14, 2020.
  7. Book: Roberts , Terry . 2019 . hardcover . The Holy Ghost Speakeasy and Revival . Nashville, TN . Turner.
  8. Vernon . Zackary . 2014 . Writing the Great War . Greenville, NC . North Carolina Literary Review . 23.
  9. Web site: National Paideia Center, Board of Directors and Staff . April 15, 2020.
  10. Web site: National Paideia Center, Our Approach . 2020 . March 31, 2020.
  11. Book: Dougherty . Eleanor . Billings . Laura . Roberts . Terry . Hattie . John . Foreword: Lighting A Fire . The Better Writing Breakthrough: Connecting Student Thinking and Discussion to Inspire Great Writing . 2016 . vii-xii . Alexandria, VA . ASCD . 978-1-4166-1884-3.
  12. Web site: Willie Morris Award for Southern Fiction . The Willie Morris Award . 2012 . February 14, 2020.
  13. Web site: North Carolina Literary and Historical Association . May 19, 2020.
  14. Web site: Autumn Thrills: October 2016 Book Picks . Our State Magazine . 2016 . June 20, 2020 .
  15. Web site: Review: 'That Bright Land' is an entertaining, compelling historical novel . Greensboro News and Record . 2016 . June 1, 2020.
  16. Web site: Thomas Wolfe Memorial Literary Award Winner . The Laurel of Asheville . 2017 . February 14, 2020.
  17. Web site: Thomas Wolfe Memorial Literary Award / Previous TWMLA Winners . Section: "That Bright Land (2016)" . Western North Carolina Historical Association . 2016 . November 6, 2021.
  18. Web site: Sarahlyn . Bruck . My Mistress' Eyes Are Raven Black: A Novel . Washington Independent Review of Books . July 28, 2021 . November 5, 2021.
  19. Web site: 2022 Thriller Awards . International Thriller Writers . February 26, 2022 . June 26, 2022.
  20. Web site: Turner Bookstore: Historical Fiction . Turner Bookstore . June 26, 2022.
  21. 2020 . Annual Report 2018-2019 . pamphlet . North Caroliniana Society . Raleigh, NC . 66.
  22. Web site: North Caroliniana Society . NCpedia . 2020 . March 11, 2020.
  23. Web site: Thomas Wolfe Society Board of Directors . Thomas Wolfe Society . 2019 . April 6, 2020.
  24. Web site: North Caroliniana Society . The North Caroliniana Society . November 20, 2021.

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