Ralph Hardy
, b. 1960
Ralph Hardy is an American author, born in Massachusetts, 1960. With his four siblings, including his twin brother, David, Hardy had lived in Massachusetts, Japan and Maryland up to the age of four, where his father had been stationed by the Air Force. At the age of five, Hardy’s mother died of lung cancer, so his widowed father requested to be stationed in his home state, North Carolina. As a teenager, Hardy worked every summer in the tobacco fields – an experience which he later developed into an award-winning short story while he was in Grad School. At the age of 18 he left his hometown to study at the University of North Carolina. He continued to write during this time and his teachers noticed that he had a talent for story-writing, but that he did not approach it with any real discipline. In 1987, Hardy won a writers’ fellowship, which was the turning point in his career. During his college years, he worked in restaurants and roofing, which later became the subject of his novel Lefty, which he self-published in 2004. After college, Hardy worked as a free-lance editor for WHO, and then worked as a grant writer for a Refugee Social Service Agency in Chicago. During this time, he completed a Master of Fine Arts and began writing every day. In 2011, he self-published another novel, The Cheetah Diaries, which led to his being signed by an agent. He currently works part-time teaching composition at North Carolina Central University. His novel, Argos: The Story of Odysseus as Told by His Loyal Dog was published by HarperCollins in 2016. He now lives with his wife in Chapel Hill, North Carolina and is currently working on 3 novels and 1 play.
Source:
Ralph Hardy, email: 2019
Bio prepared by Allison White, University of New England, awhite55@une.edu.au
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