This Goodly Land

Tom Franklin (July 7, 1963–present)

Other Names Used

• Thomas G. Franklin: full name

Alabama Connections

• Dickinson, Clarke County: birthplace, childhood residence
• Mobile, Mobile County: education, brief adult residence
• Mitcham Beat, Clarke County: setting for his novel Hell at the Breech

Selected Works

• Franklin, Tom. Poachers: Stories. New York: William Morrow, 1999.
• Franklin, Tom. Hell at the Breech. New York: William Morrow, 2003.
• Franklin, Tom. Smonk, or, Widow Town: Being the Scabrous Adventures of E. O. Smonk & of the Whore Evavangeline in Clarke County, Alabama, Early in the Last Century .... New York: William Morrow, 2006.

Literary Awards

• Edgar Allan Poe Award, Best Short Story, Mystery Writers of America, 1999, for “Poachers”
• Alabama Author Award, Alabama Library Association, 2006, for Hell at the Breach

Biographical Information

Tom Franklin was born and raised in Dickinson, Ala. He began writing by creating his own comic books and writing stories inspired by the Tarzan and Conan the Barbarian books. His family moved to Mobile after he graduated from high school. Franklin attended the University of South Alabama and graduated with a BA in English. He supported himself during that period by working in a hospital morgue, a sandblasting grit factory, and a chemical plant. Franklin later attended the University of Arkansas where he earned an MFA in 1998. He taught briefly at the University of South Alabama.

Franklin’s collection of short stories, Poachers, was published in 1999. His publication contract for Poachers required him to write a novel also. Hell at the Breech, a fictionalized version of the Mitcham War of Clarke County, Ala., was published in 2003. Franklin has held the Philip Roth Residency in Creative Writing at Bucknell University and has been Writer-in-Residence at Knox College, the John and Renee Grisham Writer-in-Residence at University of Mississippi, and the Tennessee Williams Fellow at University of the South. Franklin has been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship and a residency at the MacDowell Colony. Currently, he is Writer-in-Residence at the University of Mississippi. Franklin is married to the poet Beth Ann Fennelly and lives with his family in Oxford, Miss.

Interests and Themes

Tom Franklin’s stories are dark and often violent but sometimes humorous and poignant. They feature working-class characters and are set in southern Alabama.

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

• Wetzel, Eric. "Hellraiser". Book 29. (2003): 50-5.

Reference Web Sites

• Birnbaum, Robert. "Tom Franklin: Author of Hell at the Breech Talks with Robert Birnbaum". Identity Theory. 2003. http://www.identitytheory.com/interviews/birnbaum119.html.
• Breland, Amber. "Tom Franklin". Mississippi Writers & Musicians. 2008. Starkville High School. http://www.mswritersandmusicians.com/writers/tom-franklin.html.
• Robertson, J. C. "Tom Franklin". Southern Literary Review. 2004. http://www.southernlitreview.com/authors/tom_franklin_interview.htm.
• Wickett, Dan. "Interview with Tom Franklin". Emerging Writers Forum. 2003. http://www.breaktech.net/emergingwritersforum/View_Interview.aspx?id=40.

Photo by Maude Schuyler Clay; courtesy of William Morrow/HarperCollins.

Last updated on May 30, 2008.