Howard Bahr Papers

Howard Bahr was born in Meridian, Mississippi, on August 3, 1946. He served as a gunner's mate in the Navy in Vietnam and the Western Pacific between 1964 and 1968. Bahr worked as a brakeman and a yard clerk on several railroads in the South and Midwest for a few years before entering the University of Mississippi in 1973. He received a B.A. degree in English and history in 1977 and an M.A. degree in English in 1980, both from Ole Miss. He completed the coursework and examinations for a Ph.D., but withdrew without completing a dissertation. Bahr worked at Rowan Oak, the home of William Faulkner, from 1976 to 1993, serving as curator after 1982. During this time, Bahr was an instructor of literature at the University of Mississippi as well. He left Ole Miss in 1993 to take a teaching position at Motlow State Community College in Lynchburg, Tennessee, where he stayed until 2006. He currently resides in Jackson, Mississippi where he teaches creative writing courses at Belhaven College.

Bahr published Home for Christmas: A Story of the South, a children's book, in 1987. It was edited and reissued in 1997. He has also authored three adult novels to date: The Black Flower: A Novel of the Civil War (1997), The Year of Jubilo: A Novel of the Civil War (2000), The Judas Field (2006), and Pelican Road (2008). The Black Flower was named a NY Times Notable Book and received the W.Y. Boyd Literary Award for Excellence in Military Fiction. The Judas Field was given the Michael Shaara Award for Excellence in Civil War Fiction.