Marlin Barton

Marlin Barton

Marlin Barton is from the Black Belt region of Alabama. As a child, he was diagnosed with dyslexia and his parents were told he would never learn to read or write very well, but through a series of exercises called patterning, his dyslexia was corrected.

At the University of Alabama, he took several undergraduate creative writing classes. He received an MFA in Creative Writing from Wichita State University and afterward taught at several universities and colleges. He also began publishing short stories in literary journals and anthologies. He published his first collection, The Dry Well, in 2001, and two other collections followed, Dancing by the River and Pasture Art. In 2016 he was the first recipient of the Capote Prize for short fiction. He also published two novels, A Broken Thing and The Cross Garden. His third, Children of Dust, is now forthcoming from Regal House Publishing.

Marlin lives with his wife, Rhonda, in a house that overlooks the Alabama River outside of Montgomery. He teaches creative writing in a program for juvenile offenders called Writing Our Stories, and he also teaches in the low-residency MFA program at Converse College.