EDUCATION:

A.B., Washington University, June 1967
M.A., Emory University, June 1969
Ph.D., Emory University, December 1973.
Instructor of English, Longwood College, 1974; assistant professor, 1976; tenure, 1981; associate professor; 1983. Professor; 1990.

SCHOLARLY PUBLICATION:

Books:

About a Little Girl:  A Williams Carlos Williams Poem and Its Legacy, with Robert
W. Hamblin (Southeast Missouri State University Press, 2008).

Victorian Publishing and Mrs. Gaskell's Work, with Linda K. Hughes (U. P. of
Virginia, 1999).

    Rev. in Times Literary Supplement (26 Nov. 1999); Victorian Studies (Winter, 2001), Victorian Periodicals Review (Winter 2001), George Eliot-George Henry Lewes Studies (September 2000); Choice (2000), Gaskell Society Journal (2001), The Library (June 2001), South Central Review (2002).

America's Continuing Story: An Introduction to Serial Fiction, 1850-1900. (Wayne
State U.  P., 1993)

     Rev. in Choice (March 1993), American Literature (September 1993),  American Periodicals (1993), Academic Library Book Review (December 1993); Nineteenth-century Literature (December 1993); American Literary Realism (Winter
1994); Publishing Research Quarterly (Spring 1995).

The Victorian Serial, with Linda K. Hughes (U.P. of Virginia, 1991).

     Rev. in Victorian Periodicals Review (Summer 1991). Victorian Studies (Fall 1992); Nineteenth-century Literature (June 1992); Dickens Quarterly (June 1992); Studies in the Novel (Summer 1992); Studies in English Literature (Autumn 1992); Choice (January 1993); South Central Review (Spring 1993), Nineteenth-century Prose (Fall 1993); Newsletter of the Victorian Studies Association of Ontario (Fall 1993); Victorian Literature and Culture (1993); Journal of Pre-Raphaelite Studies (Winter 1994); Review of English Studies (May 1994).

Reading Thackeray (Wayne State U. P., 1988).
    Rev. in Thackeray Newsletter (November 1988); Choice (December 1988); Times Literary Supplement "Forms of Address" (12-18 May 1989); South Atlantic Review (November 1989); Victorian Studies (Autumn 1989);  Studies in the Novel (Spring 1990); Victorian Periodicals Review (Fall 1990); The Sewanee Review (Winter 1990); Dickens Studies Annual (1994).

Articles and Chapters in Books:

Forthcoming, “’What Happens Next?’ From Historical Reading and Publishing to
Classroom Practice,” with Linda K. Hughes, Teaching Victorian Periodicals,
Ed. Andrew Maunder (Palgrave).

Forthcoming: "The Class as Periodical: A Contemporary 'Humanities Lab," with
Leigha McReynolds,  Pedagogy 9.2 (2008).

"Introducing the Serial" rpt. from The Victorian Serial with Linda K. Hughes.
Nineteenth-Century Literature Criticism. Detroit: Gale Research Co., 2006.

"Textual/Sexual Pleasure and Serial Publication," with Linda K. Hughes, reprinted in
Elizabeth Gaskell: Mary Barton/North and South, A Critical Guide.  Icon
Books (London:  2002).  Originally in Literature in the Marketplace:
Nineteenth-century British Publishing and Reading Practices. Ed.  John 0.
Jordan & Robert L. Patten (Cambridge: Cambridge University P.,1995)

"Seeing Dickens." Review essay on the state of Dickens studies at the end of the
20th century. Dickens Studies Annual 30 (2001):343-372.

"Becoming Mrs. Gaskell." with Linda K. Hughes. Gaskell Society Journal 14 (2000):
24-34.

"Kate Chopin and Magazine Publication: Human Birth and Periodical Issue at the
End of the Nineteenth Century. "Nineteenth Century Feminisms, Number 1,
Fall/Winter 1999, 95-117.

"Henry James's Two-Part Magazine Stories and 'Daisy Miller.'" The Henry James
Review 19 (1998):126-138.

"Elizabeth Gaskell's Virgins." Australasian Victorian Studies Annual 1 (1995): 51-57.

"Textual/Sexual Pleasure and Serial Publication," with Linda K. Hughes. In
Literature in the Marketplace: Nineteenth-century British Publishing and
Reading Practices. Ed.  John 0. Jordan & Robert L. Patten (Cambridge:
Cambridge University P., 1995): 143-164.

"Union and Reunion: Collaborative Authorship," with Linda K. Hughes. In Authority
and Textuality: Current Perspectives on Collaborative Writing. Ed.James
Leonard et al. (West Cornwall, CT: Locust Hill P., 1994): 41-60

"The Waves: Publishing History and Literary Form. "In Virginia Woolf:  Merging
Perspectives.  Proceedings of the Third Annual Virginia Woolf
Conference. Ed. Mark Hussey and Vara Neverow. (Pace University P., 1994):
282-88.

"Donald Harington's House of Fiction." Chicago Review 38 (1993):110-19.

"The Nineteenth-century Periodical Novel Continued: Bonfire of the Vanities in
Rolling Stone." American Periodicals 3 (1993): 51-61

"Donald Harington's Continuing Story." Publications of the Missouri Philological
Association 16 (1991): 8-15.

"Linear Stories and Circular Visions: the Decline of the Victorian Serial," with Linda
K. Hughes. In Chaos and Order: Complex Dynamics in Literature and
Science, Ed. Katherine Hayles (Princeton, NJ: Princeton U. P., 1991): 167-94.

"Serial Literature," with Linda K. Hughes. In Victorian Britain: An Encyclopedia,
Ed.  Sally Mitchell (Garland, 1988): 704-05.

"Studying Victorian Serials," with Linda K. Hughes.  Literary Research 11 (1986):
235-252.

"Reading Long Stories on the Installment Plan." Humanities 7 (1986) 17-20.

"Literary Pieces and Whole Audiences: Denis Duval, Edwin Drood and The
Landleaguers."  Criticism 28 (1986): 27-49.

"Spontaneous Combustion" with Nancy Brown. The Kentucky English
Bulletin. Special Issue on cooperative efforts by high school and college
teachers. 35 (1985): 25-32.

"Novels, Writers, and Readers at 1850." Victorian Periodicals Review 17 (1984): 15
28.

"Testing by Installments the 'Undisciplined Heart' of David Copperfield's Reader." In
Approaches to Teaching David Copperfield, the Modern Language
Association's "Approaches to Teaching Masterpieces Series" (New York:
MLA, 1984): 114-21.

"Growing up in Fiction and in Fact: Protagonist and Reader in Thackeray's
Pendennis." Dickens Studies Annual: Essays in Victorian Fiction 12 (1983):
285-302.

"Reading Serially Published Novels: Old Stories in Thackeray's The Newcomes."
Philological Quarterly 60 (1981): 205-23.

"Clocking the Reader in the Long Victorian Novel." Victorian Newsletter 59 (1981):
22-25.

"Teaching Long Victorian Novels in Parts." Victorian Newsletter 58 (1980): 29-32.

"Beyond the Text of Vanity Fair." Studies in the Novel 11 (1979): 147-61.

"Space and Spiritual Crisis in Meredith's Modern Love.” Victorian Poetry 16
(1978): 376-82
.
"Isabella and [Thackeray's] Henry Esmond." South Atlantic Bulletin 42 (1977): 25
38.

Reviews:

Patricia Okker, Social Studies: The Magazine Novel in Nineteenth-century America
(U. Press of Virginia), 2003.  New England Quarterly Volume LXXVIII, No.
2 (June 2005):  321-23.

Graham Law, Serializing Fiction in the Victorian Press. London/New York:
Palgrave (Macmillan/St. Martin's Press). October 2000. Wilkie Collins Review
New Series Volume 4:  55-57.

Review essay on three recent books in Dickens Quarterly, 9 (September 1992): 132-35.

Mary's Hamer's Writing by Numbers: Trollope's Serial Fiction. Victorian Periodicals
Reviews 23 (1990): 30-2.

J. Don Vann's Victorian Novels in Serial. Studies in the Novel 19 (1988): 503-5.

SCHOLARLY PRESENTATIONS:

"American Dream/American Nightmare," 6th Triennial Vietnam Symposium, Texas Tech U., March, 2008

"Individual and Collective Histories."  Randolph-Macon College, January 8, 2008.

"Literary and Literary Ancestors."  Southeast Missouri State University, March 14, 2007.

"Thinking and Writing Within the Box."  Southeast Missouri State University, November 17, 2006.

"Surprise!  Meeting the Unexpected in the Victorian Serial Novel, during the Vietnam War, and along Route 66."  University of Alabama-Huntsville, October 10, 2006

"Writing Through the War on Terror," Texas Christian University, October 18, 2004.

"Writing about War."  Westminster College (MO), September 29, 2003.

"Writing Route 66."  Illinois College, September 30, 2002.

"Literary Travel."  Research Society for Victorian Periodicals, Ann Arbor, MI, August 2002.

“My Happy Life as a Failed Writer.” Rhetoric Program, Hampden-Sydney College, January 2002.

"Male and Female in Willa Cather," at session on "Women Writers Breaking with Tradition," at the Society for the Study of American Women Writers, San Antonio, TX (February 2001).

"Becoming Mrs. Gaskell," with Linda K. Hughes, presented by Professor Hughes at the annual meeting of the Gaskell Society in London (July 1999).

"Remember Me: Author to Audience in Nineteenth-century Serial Fiction," with Linda K. Hughes at conference on Victorian Memory Graduate School, New York University (May 1999).

"Hemingway and Cather," Missouri Philological Association at St. Louis University (March 1998).

"Victorian and Victorianist Collaborations," with Linda K. Hughes, Conference on Victorian Collaboration at The Graduate Center of New York University,(May 1998).

"Elizabeth Gaskell and Victorian Literary Forms," University of Missouri-Rolla, (March 1998).

"A Periodicals Anthology for Introductory Literature Courses "American Literature Association, Baltimore, MD, May, 1997.
"Commodity, Community, and Reading as Gossip in the Victorian Serial and Three-Decker."  with Linda K. Hughes. Modern Language Association, Washington, D.C., December 1996.

"The Story of Birth in Kate Chopin's Short Fiction." Society for the History of Authorship, Reading, and Publishing." Worcester,  MA, July 1996.

"Standing in The Cornhill:  Authorial Voice in Periodical Context," with Linda K. Hughes, Research Society for Victorian Periodicals, Edinburgh, Scotland, July 1995.

"How Authors Get Their Audiences: First Parts by Stowe, Twain, Hopkins, and Wharton."  American Literature Association, Baltimore, MD, May 1995.

"Elizabeth Gaskell's Male Virgins." Australasian Victorian Studies Conference, Melbourne, Australia, February 1995.

"Henry James's Two-Part Magazine Stories. "American Literature Association, San Diego, California, June 1994.

"Virgin Spaces and Represented Bodies in the Fiction of Elizabeth Gaskell," with Linda K. Hughes. Third Annual Conference on Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-century British Women Writers. Michigan State University, April 1994.

"The Waves:  Publishing History and Literary Form." Third Annual Virginia Woolf Conference, Lincoln University, July 1993.

"Publishing and Fictional Form. "Prose Fiction Section, Modern Language Association, New York, December 1992.

"Victorian Novels in American Periodicals." Annual meeting of the Research Society for Victorian Periodicals, Washington, D.C, November 1991.

"The Real McCoy: Bonfire in Rolling Stone." Annual meeting of the South Atlantic Modern Language Association, Atlanta, GA, November 1991.

"Literary Allusion in Donald Harington's The Cockroaches of StayMore." Annual Meeting of the Missouri Philological Association, Branson, Missouri, April 1991.

"Having it All: Textual/Sexual Pleasure and Serial Publication," with Linda K. Hughes. Conference on Victorian Publishing and the Circulation of Books, Santa Cruz, California, August 1991.

"Serial Fiction in American Periodicals." Annual meeting of the Research Society for Victorian Periodicals, Waco, Texas, September 1990.

"Literary Theory and Classroom Material: New Historicism and Periodicals." College English Association, Buffalo, N.Y., April 1990.

"Cynicism and Sentimentality: Thackeray from Vanity Fair to The Newcomes." Western Conference on British Studies, Austin, TX, October 1989.

"Getting Grants to Support Research," with Linda K. Hughes. Annual convention of South Atlantic Modern Language Association, Washington, D.C., November 1988.

"Writing and Reading in Parts: The Victorian Model of Serialization." New York State Education Department Conference, "Improving Writing: An On-going Process." Albany, N.Y., April 1988.

"What Do College Students Need to Know?" Workshop for Greece, N.Y., School District, Rochester, N.Y. November 1987.

"Thomas Hardy's The Woodlanders and Changing Literary Forms in 1887." Victoria's Jubilees Conference, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS, March 1987.

"To Be Continued . . . : Serial Literature in the Classroom," with Linda K. Hughes. The Teaching of Literature Division, Annual Convention of the Modern Language Association, New York. N.Y., December 1986.

"Series and Serial: Trollope's Palliser Novels and Victorian Installment Readers," with Linda K. Hughes. Colloquium on Literature and Film, the University of West Virginia, Morgantown, W.Va., September 1986.

"The Police in Different Voices," with Linda K. Hughes. The Dickens Theater Conference, University of Texas, Austin, Texas, February 1986.

"Classic and Popular Serials: from Charles Dickens to Tom Wolfe." Annual Meeting of Popular Culture Association of the South, Charleston, South Carolina, September 1985.

"College Undergraduates in the Karamazov Family." Annual Meeting of National Council of Teachers of English, Denver, Colorado, November 1983.

"Reading Multiple Texts in 1883." University of Toronto Conference, "Echoes of the Year 1883." Toronto, Canada, April 1983.

"'Time is Money'?: Serialization, Reader Response, and the Repayment of Debt in Dickens'  Little Dorrit." Annual Meeting of the Northeast Victorian Studies Association, Madison, New Jersey, April 1982.

"Novels and Novelists in 1850." Annual Meeting of Rocky Mountain British Studies Association, Las Vegas, Nevada, November 1981.
"Clocking the Reader in the Long Victorian Novel." Annual Meeting of the Modern Language Association, Division of the Victorian Period, Houston, Texas, December 1980.

"Imaginative Critic: Victorian Serial Novel Reader," Annual Meeting of the South Atlantic Modern Language Association, Romantic and Victorian Section, Atlanta, Georgia, November, 1980.

"Teaching Victorian Novels to Undergraduates: a Workshop," with Mary Saunders, Hampden Sydney College. Victorians Institute Annual Meeting, Morgantown, West Virginia, October 1980.

OTHER PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITY:

Novels:

Route 66 Chapel (BeachHouse Books, June 2006)

Route 66 to Vietnam (BeachHouse Books, November 2004)

Route 66 Spring (BeachHouse Books, August 2004)

Miss Route 66 (BeachHouse Books, January 2004)

A Left-hander on Route 66 (BeachHouse Books, August 2003)

Route 66 Kids, (BeachHouse Books, April  2002)

Growing Up on Route 66 (BeachHouse Books, September 2000)

        for more on The Route 66 Novel Series, see http://route66kids.com

     "Route 66, with its endless stream of traffic and modest roadside motels and restaurants, provides the backdrop [to his stories]. . . . His characters move from their small stretch of Route 66 into the world beyond."
      --Nancy Beardsley, Voice of America, June 9, 2004.

Short Fiction

"Monet’s Garden” forthcoming in Route 66 Federation News (2009)
“Love at the Coral Court Motel," Route 66 Federation News, (Winter 2004)
"Message in a Bottle," Route 66 Federation News (Spring 2004)
"Slide Rules and Ramblers," Route 66 Federation News (Winter 2003)
"Flights of Desire Along Route 66," Route 66 Federation News (Spring 2003)

Miscellaneous:

“Route 66 in American History.” Presentation to Wednesday Club, Danville, VA. October 29, 2008,

Quoted in Baltimore Sun on the connection between Dickens' popularity and the Harry Potter phenomenon (July 16, 2007).

Cited as expert in serialization and teaching in parts in such places as Oxford American (Jan/Feb. 2000), USA Today (13 Jan 2000), and Christian Science Monitor (24 Feb. 2000).

"Brevity Need not Rule the Syllabus if it's 'to be Continued,'" with Linda K. Hughes, letter on pedagogy in Chronicle of Higher Education, 19 March 1999, B11.

Addressed, by invitation, the Grolier Club in New York City on occasion of the opening of the exhibit, "Serial Publications: Essential Parts of the 19th Century Imagination." New York, February, 1996.

Reviewer for NEH's Fellowships for College Teachers (August 1994), for Summer Seminars For Secondary School Teachers (June, 1987; May 1988); for NEH Younger Scholars Program (November 1984, November 1988, November 1989). 

Occasional review of individual grant applications for NEH programs.

Mentor in the National Endowment for the Humanities/Reader's Digest Teacher Scholar Program, 1989-90.

Council member-at-Large, Victorians Institute, 1986-87; 1987-89. Chairman of Section IV: Romantic and Victorian Periods, South Atlantic Modern Language Association, 1984 (Secretary, 1983).

Consultant and visiting expert to "The Living Tradition: A Cooperative Project" between SUNY-College at Brockport and the Greece Central School District (1987-1988).

Proposer and Chair: "Why Great Serial Novels are Making a Comeback in the Classroom (a little at a time)," National Council of Teachers of English, Annual Meeting, Denver, Colorado (November, 1983), in conjunction with Prince Edward County and Quantico High Schools.

Co-host with Mary Saunders, Annual Meeting of Victorians Institute at Longwood and Hampden-Sydney Colleges, October 13-14, 1983.

Proposer and Chair: "Reading and Teaching Nineteenth-century Fiction in Installments," Special Session, Modern Language Association of America, 1982 (Los Angeles).

Participant in NEH Summer Seminar for College Teachers, "The Novel and the Market Society," Stanford University, 1980.

GRANTS/AWARDS:

Alpha Lambda Delta 2003 and 2005 choice as "one of our organization's three favorite teachers from our freshmen year at Longwood."

Student Faculty Recognition Award, Longwood College, 2002.  "In recognition of professional excellence and devoted service to students."

Maude Glenn Raiford Award for Excellence in Teaching, Longwood College, September 1996.  "In recognition of excellence in teaching at Longwood College and devoted service to students."

Lambda Iota Tau's Professor of the Year Award for 1995-96 and for 2003-2004, Department of English, Philosophy, and Modern Languages, Longwood College.

Service recognition, Longwood College Afro-American Student Alliance, 1981.

NEH Travel to Collections Grant ($750), June 1989; for research at British Newspaper Library, London, 7-14 September 1989.

"American Novels in Periodicals." Grant ($10,500) from Virginia Foundation for the Humanities and Public Policy to support research and one-semester residency at the Virginia Humanities Center, Charlottesville, VA, Spring 1989.

"Victorian Serial Texts," with Linda K. Hughes. Grant ($85,000) from NEH's Division of Research Programs for full-time release from teaching to write a book on Victorian serial novels and poems during fall 1987, spring 1988, and fall 1988 semesters.

"Dickens, Eliot, James: Great Serial Novels." To host NEH Summer Seminars for Secondary School Teachers at Longwood College in 1984 ($39,000 grant) and 1986 ($45,000 grant).

"The Victorian Serial: Fiction." American Council of Learned Societies grant-in-aid to support travel to London and research at the British Museum, summer, 1985 ($1,550).

"Restoring Great Long Works to Introductory Literature Courses," with Ellery Sedgwick. Grant ($28,000) from NEH's Division of Education Programs for improvement of freshman English program, Longwood College.