Biography
Dale Harlin Edmonds, Jr., was born in Fort Worth, Texas, on Dec. 27, 1934. He received his early education in the Fort Worth Public Schools and graduated from Arlington Heights High School in 1953.
In the fall of 1953 Dale entered Texas Christian University and held a “Special High School Scholarship” for four years. He graduated with a B. A. (magna cum laude) in 1957, with a double major in English and Journalism.
After graduation from TCU, for two years Dale served as a lieutenant on the faculty of The Adjutant General’s School, U. S. Army, Fort Benjamin Harrison, Indiana, where he wrote and edited extension courses and lesson plans and taught courses on military subjects. Following his tour of active duty, Dale served six years in the active reserve, including a Mobilization Designation Assignment, and was promoted to captain.
In the fall of 1959 Dale entered the Graduate School of The University of Texas. While serving as a Teaching Assistant for five years and a Special Instructor for one year, he twice received “Excellence in Teaching” Awards from The Department of English. He also received a Summer Fellowship and a Travel and Research grant from the Graduate School. He was awarded his Ph.D. in the summer of 1965 with majors in English and American Literature and minors in History and Philosophy. His dissertation, entitled Malcolm Lowry: A Study of His Life and Work, was the first ever completed on the acclaimed author of Under the Volcano.
In the fall of 1965 Dale joined the Department of English of Tulane University. From that time until his retirement in July of 2007 he taught undergraduate and graduate courses in modern British, American, and Continental Literature; creative writing; and advanced expository writing. One of his particular interests was literature set in New Orleans and environs. In 1968-69 he taught as Fulbright Lecturer in American Literature at The University of Bucharest, Romania. He also taught in summer programs in Czechoslovakia (twice); Cambridge, England; Paris (twice); and Rome (twice). In 1993-94 he was Professor-in-Charge of the Tulane/Newcomb Junior Year Abroad in Great Britain and Ireland. During this year he and his wife Margaret Williams visited Tulane students who were in residence at 16 different universities in the U.K. and in Hamburg, Paris, Florence, Rome, and Madrid. “It was a tough job, but someone had to do it,” Dale has said.
On the Tulane campus Dale served as Director of Graduate Studies in the English Department, Director of The Tulane Honors Program, Acting Director of Tulane/Newcomb Study Abroad, and Coordinator of Major External Fellowships (Rhodes, Marshall, etc.). He received several travel and research grants from the Tulane Graduate School, and a grant from the International Research and Exchanges Board to follow up on projects that he had begun during his Fulbright year in Romania.
Dale published critical works on such writers as Malcolm Lowry, Ernest Hemingway, Walt Whitman, Dylan Thomas, and Carson McCullers. He also published original fiction and poetry and received several accolades for his creative work, including the “Frank O’Connor Award in Short Fiction” from Descant Literary Journal. In 1994 he was Guest Editor for The Big Easy Crescent City that Care Forgot, a special New Orleans issue of Negative Capability. He served as Advisory Editor for that journal for more than twenty years. He was an Editorial Consultant for The Malcolm Lowry Review during its three decades of existence and was on the program of Malcolm Lowry conferences in Vancouver and Toronto, Canada; and in Ripe, Sussex, England. For many years he was on the Board of Directors of the Tennessee Williams and New Orleans Literary Festival and was the facilitator for the “Poets in Person” series at the New Orleans Public Library.
After his retirement from Tulane, Dale and Margaret moved from New Orleans to Ocean Springs, Mississippi, a small town on the coast of Mississippi where Margaret grew up. They have enjoyed their time in this “Aprilberry of the Coast--it’s not quite Mayberry, but it’s close,” Dale has said. Son Paul and grandson Gabriel live nearby in Slidell, Louisiana.
In reflecting upon his forty-two years as a member of the Tulane University English Department, Dale writes, “This was my first and last job out of graduate school. I was fortunate to be able to live in a city of great charm and creative energy and to teach in an academic department filled with congenial and gifted colleagues. I taught what I wanted, when I wanted; I did a lot of academic-related travel; and I got involved in all sorts of literary endeavors both on campus and off. Thank you, Tulane English Department, for giving me this opportunity. A generous portion of my heart and soul roams your hallowed halls.”