WFHB Bloomington Community Radio
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Rick Bragg is an acclaimed Southern storyteller and Pulitzer Prize-winning author. He is best known for his autobiographical trilogy: “All Over But the Shoutin’”, “Ava’s Man”, and “The Prince of Frogtown”. He is currently a professor at the University of Alabama and has been recognized with more than forty writing awards, including Alabama’s 2009 Harper Lee Award. Bragg’s signature stories are about the plight of real people in bleak situations, always with an eye towards hope and the triumph of the human spirit. The authenticity of Bragg’s work comes from the experience of pain and deprivation in his own childhood; Bragg’s father drank himself to death when Dad was ten years younger than Rick is today. Through his writing Rick embarks on a journey of self-discovery, seeking out stories of his father from those who knew him. Today Rick is proud to be a papa himself from what you might call “instant fatherhood”, having married a woman who already had a child. Ruminations on the dynamics between father and son abound in this clip from Rick Bragg speaking in Bloomington this past weekend in a WFHB radio exclusive.
