This Goodly Land

Peter Huggins (June 23, 1951–present)

Alabama Connections

• Tuscaloosa, Tuscaloosa County: education
• Auburn, Lee County: adult residence

Selected Works

• Huggins, Peter. Hard Facts. Livingston, Ala.: Livingston Press and University of West Alabama, 1998.
• Huggins, Peter. Blue Angels: Poems. Montgomery: River City Pub., 2001.
• Huggins, Peter. Necessary Acts. Montgomery: River City Pub., 2004.
• Huggins, Peter. Trosclair and the Alligator. Illus. Lindsey Gardiner. New York: Star Bright Books, 2006. For younger readers.
• Huggins, Peter. In the Company of Owls. Montgomery: NewSouth Books, 2008. For younger readers.

Biographical Information

Peter Huggins was born in Oxford, Miss. When he was growing up, his family lived in Mississippi, Texas, and Kansas, but most of his childhood was spent in New Orleans. He attended the University of the South (now Sewanee: The University of the South) in Sewanee, Tenn., where he took classes from writers Allen Tate and Andrew Lytle. Huggins graduated with a BA in history in 1973. He took graduate courses in history at the Sir George Williams Campus of Concordia University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, before enrolling at Samford University’s Cumberland School of Law. He obtained his JD degree in 1978 and was admitted to the bar in Louisiana but never practiced law.

After law school, Huggins worked for several years as an insurance investigator. He had begun writing creatively while he was in law school, and now he became interested in pursuing writing seriously. His first national publication was in 1980, when two of his poems were published in The Texas Review. Huggins enrolled in the MFA program at the University of Alabama and earned his degree in 1985. After finishing, he took a position as an English instructor at Auburn University. His first poetry compilation, Hard Facts, was published in 1998. In 2006, Huggins published his first book for children, a picture book called Trosclair and the Alligator. His first book for young adults, In the Company of Owls, was published in 2008. Huggins lives with his family in Auburn, Ala.

Interests and Themes

Peter Huggins writes poetry for adults and books for children and young adults.

For More Information

Please check your local library for these materials. If items are not available locally, your librarian can help you borrow them through the InterLibrary Loan program. Your librarian can also help you find other information about this author.

There may be more information available through the databases in the Alabama Virtual Library. If you are an Alabama citizen, AVL can be used at your public library or school library media center. You can also get a username and password from your librarian to use AVL at home.

Photo courtesy of NewSouth Books.

Last updated on Oct 10, 2009.