In this episode, we discuss the life and work of Thomas Wolfe, one of the country’s leading novelists of the early twentieth century. A contemporary of Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and Faulkner, Wolfe is best known for his first novel Look Homeward, Angel. He would publish four books during his lifetime and is an important figure in American literature for his autobiographical fiction and other ways he experimented with form.
Wolfe died at the age of 37, leaving behind a massive manuscript that would lead to more publications following his death. He is remembered as a key figure in the Southern Renaissance and influenced the likes of Jack Kerouac, Ray Bradbury, Philip Roth and countless others.
For this episode, we are joined by members of the Thomas Wolfe Society: Joseph Bentz, American literature professor and Articles Editor of The Thomas Wolfe Review; Mark Canada, scholar, writer, and chancellor of Indiana University Kokomo; and Paula Eckard, Professor of English at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and Editor of The Thomas Wolfe Review. You can read their full bios below.
Joe, Mark, and Paula are interviewed by Nate King, Digital Content Associate at the American Writers Museum. This conversation originally took place July 26, 2024 and was recorded over Zoom.
JOSEPH BENTZ is a professor of American Literature and a Faculty Fellow in the Honors College at Azusa Pacific University. He serves as Articles Editor of The Thomas Wolfe Review. His articles on Wolfe have also appeared in Studies in Short Fiction and the North Carolina Literary Review. He is a multiple-time winner of the Zelda & Paul Gitlin Literary Prize, given for the best article of the year on Thomas Wolfe. Bentz serves on the Board of Directors of The Thomas Wolfe Society. He recently finished a book chapter on Wolfe for a collection called Watering the Wasteland: Spiritual Responses to American Literary Modernism, which will be published by Palgrave Macmillan. Bentz earned his Ph.D. in American literature at Purdue University, where he wrote his dissertation on Wolfe under the direction of Wolfe scholar Leslie Field. He also earned an M.A. in British and American literature from Purdue and a B.A. in English from Olivet Nazarene University. He is married to Peggy, a retired nurse. They have two grown children and live in the town of La Verne in Southern California. Bentz oversees a public Facebook group called Literary Minute, which offers short, entertaining, thought-provoking posts about fiction, poetry, and plays.
MARK CANADA, Ph.D., is the eighth chancellor of Indiana University Kokomo. During his more than 25 years in higher education in Indiana and North Carolina, he has been an award-winning teacher and leader, a prolific writer and scholar, and a champion for student success. He enjoys sharing his expertise in literature and language through public lectures, his weekly Mind Travel newsletter and Mind Inclined Substack, and his numerous articles and books, including Thomas Wolfe Remembered (2018, co-edited with Nami Montgomery), as well as the Audible Originals Ben Franklin’s Lessons in Life (2021) and Edgar Allan Poe: Master of Horror (2020). Mark and his wife, Lisa, live in Kokomo. They have a daughter, Esprit, and a son, Will. More information is available at markcanada.org.
PAULA GALLANT ECKARD, Ph.D., is Professor of English at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte where she teaches American and Southern literature. She has previously served as English Department Chair, American Studies Director, and Women and Gender Studies Director, among other roles. Her books include Maternal Body and Voice in Toni Morrison, Bobbie Ann Mason, and Lee Smith (2002) and Thomas Wolfe and Lost Children in Southern Literature (2016). She is working on a biography of Charles Chesnutt for Rowman and Littlefield’s African American Biography series. A former registered nurse, Paula’s research interests also include literature and medicine. She is a past president of the Thomas Wolfe Society and the current editor of The Thomas Wolfe Review.