Featured Author

Brent L. Kendrick, Ph.D.

Dr. Brent L. Kendrick taught more than 7,000 students at Laurel Ridge Community College (Middletown, VA) over a twenty-three-year career. They applaud his enthusiastic, passionate, and energetic teaching style.  One student commented, “Dr. Kendrick could excite a stone to write.”

He is widely known for his scholarly work on Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and is the editor of her collected letters, The Infant Sphinx, praised by The Journal of Modern Literature as “the most complete record to date of Freeman’s life as writer and woman.” He is currently working on a new, two-volume update—Dolly: Life and Letters of Mary E. Wilkins Freeman. Vol I: The New England Years (1852-1901). Vol II: The New Jersey Years (1902-1930).

He earned his Ph.D. in American Literature from the University of South Carolina. After a twenty-five-year career at the Library of Congress–where he received the institution’s Distinguished Service Award–he relocated to the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia and taught at Laurel Ridge Community College from 1999-2022. The State Council of Higher Education in Virginia (SCHEV) named him one of the top twelve educators in the Commonwealth (2008). He received the Chancellor’s Award for Teaching Excellence (Virginia Community College System, 2010). He was a Chancellor’s Professor (2012-2014). He was the first recipient of the Susan S. Wood Professorship for Teaching Excellence (2016).

Title by Brent L. Kendrick, Ph.D.

  • In Bed My Year of Foolin' Around

    by Brent L. Kendrick, Ph.D.

    “So, you want to be a writer?”

    It’s a question that Professor Brent L. Kendrick always asks his creative writing students and other aspiring writers. As you might expect, he always leads them to an answer: “Great. Then write. Just write.”

    That’s exactly what he did to achieve this collection of fifty-seven creative nonfiction essays—composed in bed before going to sleep. These essays are always up-close-and-personal, with subtle hints of the scholar fooling around with ideas and words. They are proof positive—if you want to write, just write.

    Between these covers you’ll find topics for everyone. Aging and Angels. Blogging, Writers, and Writing. Death, Immortality, and Love. Education, Teaching, and Transformation. Fitness and Health. Fruitcakes and Sourdough. Nature and Pets. Parents and Siblings. Religion and Spirituality. Time Management and Motivation.

    The essays are insightful and thought-provoking, filled with wonderment and whimsical observations that bespeak a writer who is passionate about language, life, and literature. They are entertaining and funny, sometimes even hilarious and hysterical.

    Fresh and refreshing through and through, In Bed is perfect for relaxed, bed-time reading.

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