This Goodly Land

Marlin Barton (October 25, 1961–present)

Other Names Used

• Bart Barton: nickname

Alabama Connections

• Montgomery, Montgomery County: birthplace, brief childhood residence, adult residence
• Forkland, Greene County: childhood residence
• Tuscaloosa, Tuscaloosa County: education

Selected Works

• Barton, Marlin. The Dry Well: Stories. Savannah: F. C. Beil, 2001.
• Barton, Marlin. A Broken Thing. Savannah: Frederic C. Beil, 2003.
• Barton, Marlin. Dancing By the River: Stories. Savannah: Frederic C. Beil, 2005.

Literary Awards

• "Jeremiah's Road" included in Prize Stories 1994: The O. Henry Awards
• Andrew Lytle Prize for Best Short Story, awarded by Sewanee Review, 1995, for "The Dry Well"

Biographical Information

Marlin Barton was born in Montgomery, Ala., and grew up in Forkland, Ala. Barton had dyslexia as a child. To overcome it, he did special exercises every day while his mother read to him. He also enjoyed listening to stories told by his father and grandparents and by customers of his grandfather’s store. Barton attended the University of Alabama, graduating in 1985 with a BS in Education. He began writing fiction while taking writing classes at the University. In 1990, he earned an MFA in Creative Writing from Wichita State University in Kansas.

During the 1990s, Barton taught writing at Auburn University at Montgomery, Huntingdon College, and Clemson University. In 1997, he joined the “Writing Our Stories” program of the Alabama Writers’ Forum and the Alabama Department of Youth Services, teaching writing classes to juvenile offenders. In 2000, he became assistant director of that program. Barton began publishing his short stories in the 1990s and won several awards. His first collection of stories, The Dry Well, was published in 2001. Since then, he has published a novel and a second story collection.

Interests and Themes

Marlin Barton’s novel and short stories are set in Riverfield, a fictional version of Forkland, the Black Belt town where he grew up. Many of the characters are based on people he encountered there as a child.

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 Web Sites

• Glixman, Elizabeth. "An Interview with Marlin Barton: Contemporary Reflections from the South". Eclectica Magazine. 2005. http://www.eclectica.org/v9n3/glixman.html.

Photo by Chris John; courtesy of the Alabama Writers' Forum.

Last updated on May 30, 2008.