Tim Gilmore
Tim Gilmore writes about the haunted South, the “spirit of place” (or psychogeography), the South as center of America’s cultural rifts. Gilmore sees the South’s particular patterns of crime, its fundamentalism, its racial irresolution at the heart of America’s divisions and its stories, and therefore, as illustrative and necessary.
Gilmore is the author of 21 books, including Murder Capital: 8 Stories, 1890s-1980s, The Mad Atlas of Virginia King, Channeling Anna Fletcher, Goat Island Hermit: The State of Florida vs. Rollians Christopher, The Book of Isaiah: A Vision of the Founder of a City, illustrated by Shep Shepard, Devil in the Baptist Church: Bob Gray’s Unholy Trinity, In Search of Eartha White: Storehouse for the People, and Stalking Ottis Toole: A Southern Gothic.
Gilmore is currently at work on a new book, The Strange Hard Facts of the City, which tells the stories of that rural Georgia migration to Jacksonville, of personal family connections to some of the South’s hardest truths, of strange characters becoming archetypes of a troubled America.
He has written four works for the stage, each produced at Florida State College at Jacksonville, where he teaches writing. They include Repossessions: Mass Shooting in Baymeadows, about the 1990 GMAC Mass Shooting in Jacksonville and adaptations of The Mad Atlas of Virginia King and Stalking Ottis Toole.
Gilmore is the founder of JaxbyJax, a literary arts festival built on the theme of “Jacksonville Writers Writing Jacksonville.” He’s the writer and creator of www.jaxpsychogeo.com, a project that explores the centrality of the South in more than 650 nonfiction narratives from his hometown, Jacksonville, Florida.
Gilmore’s work has appeared in numerous national and Florida publications including Mark Ari’s EAT Poems and Andrei Condrescu’s Exquisite Corpse. In late 2018, his essay “The Stories That Roam Jacksonville’s Streets” appeared in Bridge Eight Press’s anthology 15 Views of Jacksonville. He is a regular contributor to Florida Public Radio’s Florida Frontiers, presented by the Florida Historical Society.
Gilmore teaches Literature and Writing at Florida State College at Jacksonville, where he was awarded a 2018 Distinguished Faculty Award. The Cultural Council of Greater Jacksonville named Gilmore the 2018 Literary Artist of the Year. Also in 2018, Gilmore served on the Jacksonville City Council’s Civil Rights History Task Force and was presented a City of Jacksonville Melody Starr Anne Bishop Community Service Award. Gilmore holds a Ph.D. in English from the University of Florida.
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