Who is the Low Professor

I’ve been frequently asked to compose short biographies for several workshops, conferences and seminars, and over the years, I’ve come to rely on this one.

CR was born a poor white boy in rural east Georgia, in a town found only on the most ancient of maps, surrounded by horses, cows, chickens and pine trees. Through hard work and intense study, he managed to escape, abandoning his post from atop his rusting John Deere tractor. He ran, hiding behind billboards and attaching himself to the undercarriages of passing cars until he managed to reach the heart of downtown Atlanta. There he survived as a corporate trainer, teaching rapacious corporate suits such skills as conflict resolution, sales negotiation, account management, public speaking, business writing, and analytical and creative thinking. However, this easy lifestyle of art festivals, boutique shopping, glitzy celebrity restaurants and martini-swilling gallery openings resulted in that kind of fuzzy-headed liberal thinking which leads to being eaten. He had grown soft, and one late evening, as he was walking to his car on the fifth level of the parking garage, his complacent life ended. He was, sadly, jumped by the very enemy he had forgotten--Rural Life. When he eventually came to, he found himself living in rural east Polk County, Florida, surrounded by horses, cows, chickens and orange trees.

On lonely moonlit nights, when the wind blows from the east, one can sometimes hear his sad, plaintive cry.

Irony aside, I have completed my masters in English literature from the University of South Florida, along with a graduate degree in creative writing and a master’s thesis on Shakespeare, on the beardless male characters in his canon and the early-modern actors who portrayed them, to be precise. I’m taking a break at the moment before finishing my Ph.D., in American literature between 1865 and 1920, and my dissertation research focuses on male friendships in the literature of the period, especially those tales set in the American West. I’m trying to find a home for a scholarly note on the astronomical event referenced in John Dryden’s "Astrea Redux," along with two short stories. I’m currently working on an article on Erskine Caldwell’s Tobacco Road, and in October 2008, I delivered a paper at the FCEA conference in Ybor City on colonializing architecture and commoditized culture at EPCOT’s Showcase Lagoon.