Clyde Edgerton is an American author and Creative Writingprofessor. Born in Durham, North Carolina, he writes books known for endearing characters, small-town Southern dialogue and realistic fire and brimstone religious sermons. His books are full of humor, while still respecting the characters' integrity. He grew up in the small, rural town of Bethesda, North Carolina. He was the only child of Truma and Ernest Edgerton, who came from families of cotton and tobacco farmers, respectively. In 1962 Edgerton enrolled at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, eventually majoring in English. During this time he was a student in the Air Force ROTC program where he learned to fly a small plane. After graduating in 1966, he entered the Air Force and served five years as a fighter pilot in the United States, Korea, Japan and Thailand. After his time in service, Edgerton got his Master's degree in English and began a job as an English teacher at his old high school. Soon after, he also earned a doctorate. He decided to become a writer in 1978 after watching Eudora Welty read a short story on public television. Publication of Edgerton's first novel, Raney, the plot of which revolves around the marriage of a Free Will Baptist and an Episcopalian, ultimately led to Edgerton's leaving the teaching staff at Campbell University in Buies Creek, North Carolina. His later work, Killer Diller, is a thinly veiled satire of that university and its administration, with whom Edgerton clashed over Raney. All of Edgerton's works are influenced in some way by his personal experiences. While much of his prose feels like reading a slice-of-life narrative, there is one text that is less Edgerton, and more “life” – his novel Redeye. Inspired by a visit to the Mesa Verde and Anasazi cliff dwellings, Clyde Edgerton uses that as a central location for the events of his story. The text is set in 1890s Colorado, and required an extensive amount of research when compared to his other works. Currently he is a professor at the University of North Carolina Wilmington. He is an avid painter. He has a street named after him in Kernersville, North Carolina.
