This Goodly Land

Mark Childress (September 21, 1957–present)

Alabama Connections

• Monroeville, Monroe County: birthplace
• Tuscaloosa, Tuscaloosa County: education
• Birmingham, Jefferson County: adult residence
• Magnolia Springs, Baldwin County: adult residence

Selected Works

• Childress, Mark. A World Made of Fire. New York: Knopf, 1984.
• Childress, Mark. V for Victor: A Novel. New York: Knopf, 1989.
• Childress, Mark. Joshua and Bigtooth. Illus. Rick Meyerowitz. Boston: Little, Brown, 1992. For younger readers.
• Childress, Mark. Crazy in Alabama. New York: Putnam, 1993.
• Childress, Mark. Joshua and the Big Bad Blue Crabs. Illus. Mary Barrett Brown. Boston: Little, Brown, 1996. For younger readers.
• Childress, Mark. Henry Bobbity Is Missing and It Is All Billy Bobbity's Fault. Illus. Ernie Eldredge. Birmingham: Crane Hill Publishers, 1996. For younger readers.
• Childress, Mark. Gone for Good. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1998.
• Childress, Mark. One Mississippi: A Novel. New York: Little, Brown and Co., 2006.

Literary Awards

• Alabama Author Award, Alabama Library Association, 1994, for Crazy in Alabama

Biographical Information

Mark Childress was born in Monroeville, Ala. His family moved away when he was very young, but he visited relatives there during the summer. He was inspired to become a writer after reading To Kill a Mockingbird by fellow Monroeville native Harper Lee. Childress attended the University of Louisiana at Shreveport, then transferred to the University of Alabama, from which he graduated in 1978 with a BA in English and journalism. He began working as a reporter for the The Birmingham News while he was still in school. In 1980, he became a feature writer for the magazine Southern Living.

In 1984, Childress left Southern Living to spend a brief period as an editor for the The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. That year, he also published his first novel, A World Made of Fire, and he soon retired from journalism to write full-time. His most famous novel, Crazy in Alabama, was made into a motion picture. Childress published his first children’s book, Joshua and Bigtooth, in 1992. Since then, he has continued to publish both novels and books for children. Childress has lived in San Francisco and Costa Rica and currently resides in New York.

Interests and Themes

Many of Mark Childress’s novels employ magical realism or have Southern settings. His children’s books are about tolerance and learning to live with those who are different from us.

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.

Reference Articles

• Motley-Carcache, Marian. "Magic Realism in Mark Childress’s A World Made of Fire". Mississippi Quarterly 42. (1988): 57-67.

Reference Book Chapters and Encyclopedia Entries

• Caton, Bill. "Mark Childress: The Things We Do"; Fighting Words: Words on Writing from 21 of the Heart of Dixie's Best Contemporary Authors. Montgomery: Black Belt Press, . 34-41.

Reference Web Sites

• "Mark Childress". Bhamwiki. 2007. http://www.bhamwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Mark_Childress.
• Childress, Mark. www.markchildress.com. http://www.markchildress.com/index.htm .
• Moore, Danielle. "Mark Childress". Mississippi Writers & Musicians. 2007. Starkville High School. http://www.mswritersandmusicians.com/writers/mark-childress.html.
• Swaim, Don. "Audio Interviews with Mark Childress". Wired For Books. Ohio University. http://wiredforbooks.org/markchildress/ .

Location of Papers

• University of Alabama

Photo by Kelly Campbell; courtesy of Little, Brown & Company.

Last updated on May 30, 2008.