J. Adcock
http://www.patadcocksbooks.com/
James Patrick Adcock is Professor Emeritus of English, Henderson State University. He holds degrees from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, the University of Central Arkansas, the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, and Texas A&M University at Commerce. Before undertaking an academic career, he worked as a claims and field representative with the Social Security Administration for eight years.
He is the author of Muggsbottom and Me: A Study in Anglo-Arkansas Relations (1993) and On the Road with Muggsbottom (2012). He has contributed feature material to the Reader's Digest, the Arkansas Democrat, the Arkansas Gazette, and other newspapers. He also contributed to "Sideshow," a companion piece to the syndicated comic strip Family Circus. His short stories, poetry, sketches, and essays have appeared in OASIS, Proscenium, forthcoming, Evelyn Waugh Newsletter, PAPA, Academic Forum, and Arkansas Libraries. He has written over one hundred entries for reference works published by Salem Press, Harper & Row (HarperCollins), Marshall Cavendish, Henry Holt, and Fitzroy Dearborn.
He is the author of three one-act plays: Master of None, The Notorious Mr. Mosley: A Comedy of the Days When Horse Stealing Was a Capital Offense (with Larry Don Frost), and Henderson Vignettes (From Time to Time). Master of None won the first place cash prize in the University of Arkansas Bicentennial Playwriting Contest, Short Play Division, 1974. It was produced in five performances in 1986 and was published in 1993. The Notorious Mr. Mosley: A Comedy of the Days When Horse Stealing Was a Capital Offense was written under a grant from the Arkansas Endowment for the Humanities, published in 1980, and produced in five performances in 1986-87. Henderson Vignettes (From Time to Time) was commissioned by Henderson State University and was produced in 2000. He wrote the libretto for Dorian Gray, an opera in two acts, composed by William Underwood. It was produced in concert in 1992. He was active for many years in university and community theater, appearing in The Male Animal, Sabrina Fair, Dear Ruth, Night Must Fall, Oedipus Rex (readers theater), Twelve Angry Men, My Fair Lady, The Fantasticks, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, The Public Eye, The Rainmaker, Bad Seed, Play It Again, Sam (also producer), Six Rms, River Vu, A Separate Peace (readers theater), The Real Inspector Hound, Womanless Wedding (as one of the few actors not in drag; the show was a smash hit before a small town audience), and several one acts. He directed The Pot Boiler.
He wrote comedy material for Tony Russell of Los Angeles. For five years, he was employed by the Poets' Roundtable of Arkansas as its State Critic. At Henderson State, he edited both a literary magazine and a research journal. He has served as a frequent public speaker. He is a widower with one daughter. He resides in Arkadelphia, Arkansas.
