Vice, Brad 1973–

PERSONAL: Born 1973, in AL. Education: Degrees in creative writing from University of Tennessee at Knoxville and University of Cincinnati.

ADDRESSES: Office—Department of English, Mississippi State University, P.O. Box E, Mississippi State, MS 39762. E-mail—wbvice@juno.com.

CAREER: Mississippi State University, Mississippi State, assistant professor of English.

WRITINGS:

The Bear Bryant Funeral Train, University of Georgia Press (Athens, GA), 2005.

Contributor of stories to Shenandoah, Southern Review, Georgia Review, Greensboro Review, Carolina Quarterly, Atlantic Monthly, Hayden's Ferry Review, and Five Points. Reviewer for San Francisco Chronicle; contributor of articles to periodicals, including Writers' Digest and Novel and Short Story Writers' Market. Work represented in anthologies, including New Stories from the South, Algonquin, 1997, 2003; and Best New American Voices, Harcourt, 2003.

SIDELIGHTS: Alabama-born writer Brad Vice is a southern voice whose stories have been published by many regional journals. Reviewing his first collection, The Bear Bryant Funeral Train, a Publishers Weeklycritic felt that the nine stories set in the rural South "gorgeously examine loneliness and its companion, longing." Carol Haggas wrote in Booklist that "Vice's stories do much to explain why the term 'Southern Gothic' exists in literary criticism."

Even the titles of stories like "Chickensnake" and "Mule," evoke images of the South. A Kirkus Reviews contributor wrote that the former "is a perfect little nightmare, worthy of Erskine Caldwell in his heyday." Other stories include "Mojo Farmer," about a black farmer with a gift, and "Report from Junction," about a boy hoping to escape life at home through a University of Alabama football scholarship to play under coach Bear Bryant. The Publishers Weekly contributor called the latter story "the strongest and most terrifying" in the book. In "Tuscaloosa Knights," the Ku Klux Klan appear, along with other white-robed characters and escapees from an asylum, and Bryant is recalled in the title story, a tale of corporate wrongdoing set in the future. The Kirkus Reviews writer described The Bear Bryant Funeral Train as an "impressively varied debut collection," as well as a "distinguished and disturbing work, from a lavishly gifted new writer."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, September 15, 2005, Carol Haggas, review of The Bear Bryant Funeral Train, p. 34.

Kirkus Reviews, August 15, 2005, review of The Bear Bryant Funeral Train, p. 881.

Publishers Weekly, September 5, 2005, review of The Bear Bryant Funeral Train, p. 36.

ONLINE

Mississippi State University Web site, http://www.msstate.edu/ (January 14, 2006), profile of Vice.