About

I teach writing at the University of South Carolina, in Columbia, and I write both fiction and nonfiction. My first novel was titled Striking Out and was a coming-of-age novel set in Georgia in the 1950s. My second, Atlanta Blues, set in 1981, is about the search for a missing girl by a reporter and two cops. The search leads through the underbelly of urban Atlanta to murder and heartbreak.

Striking Out was nominated for the PEN/Hemingway Award, a coveted prize for first novels. Still in print, it is available at www.thepermanentpress.com and http://www.amazon.com.

Atlanta Blues, also available on Amazon.com, was nominated for the Southern Book Critics Circle Award, made the best-seller list in Columbia, and was named in a year-end roundup of book as “One of The Three Best Novels of the Year (2004) by a Southern Writer — and maybe the best.”

My new novel, A Majority of One, is due out on Sept. 9, 2011, and will be available on Amazon.com in hard copy, a Kindle edition, and as an ebook for downloading to various ebook readers.

Born in South Carolina, I grew up in Georgia and am a graduate of the University of Georgia. I began teaching after several years in journalism (last at The Atlanta Constitution), teaching first at Clemson University, Clemson, S.C., and then moving to USC in 1990, where I teach writing courses in the English Department, the School of Journalism, and the South Carolina Honors College. I’ve published free-lance articles in various magazines and newspapers, and am a free-lance reporter for The New York Times and others. I’m also a member of the Southern Book Critics Circle.

I review books for the New York Journal of Books. I have also reviewed books for SouthernScribe.com, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution,  The (Columbia, S.C.) State newspaper, and others.  I live in Columbia and may be reached at robertlamb@myway.com.

I invite other writers to post links on my site to their writing.