Squire Babcock has taken a long and fascinating path to becoming a novelist. He grew up in a dysfunctional home in well-to-do suburban Louisville and hit bottom in 1972 when he was arrested and jailed for possession of heroin. In the ensuing years, as he struggled to rise from the ashes of his disintegrated family, he worked as a ballroom dance instructor, farm hand, weigh-man in a cotton gin, hunting guide, pool table repair mechanic, small business owner, carpenter, free-lance journalist and blues drummer.
His call to writing and teaching found wings relatively late in life when, at the age of 30, he sold his Nashville pool table business and registered as a freshman English major at the University of Massachusetts. After graduating with his B.A., he taught English at a Massachusetts boarding school for three years before returning to UMass for his MFA.
In 1996 Kentucky Governor Brereton Jones pardoned Babcock’s heroin conviction. He currently is Associate Professor of English at Murray State University, where he has taught English and creative writing for 16 years and heads up the Low-Residency MFA Program in creative writing.
