QuickTalk Friday Interview Series
Telling Secrets of His Hometown
Meet Terry Barr, a personal essay writer-memoirist
I’m excited to talk with Dr. Terry Barr.
It feels like I’ll be chatting with my favorite college professor in his Office Hours. That’s because Terry has been a professor of English and Creative Writing at Presbyterian College in Clinton, South Carolina, since 1987.
1987 incidentally was my first year of college.
Terry has a new book of personal essays out, Secrets I’m Dying to Tell You. It’s his second collection of essays on Bessemer, Alabama. His first was Don’t Date Baptists and Other Warning from my Alabama Mother.
So I hope we can all learn a few tips on how to write a memoir — especially if that’s a desire of yours — from Terry and hear secrets from his hometown.
Scot: Tell me about Bessemer, Alabama. That’s where you grew up, right?
Terry: Oh, Bessemer. Since we don’t have an official poet laureate, I’m claiming the title. Bessemer was a mining town in its inception, back in the 1880s. My family lived just downhill from these mines. Our most famous landmark is a Greek-owned restaurant called The Bright Star, serving continuously since 1907.
