Did you always want to be a writer?
Could you name a few writers (and which book) whose work interests you at the moment, or who have influenced your work?
How did you get interested in the topic of your book?
How did you research the topic for your book?
Did you have a specific plan for how the book would turn out?
What about the topic of your book do you want readers to come away understanding?
Are you working on anything new and, if so, what can you tell us about it?
a discussion with F.N. Boney
I did not always want to be a writer though I always read magazines, newspapers, books in the age before TV. I studied for a Ph.D. mainly to be a teacher, but it was obvious that recognition and promotion were based primarily on publication, not teaching. Also, the more you published the easier it got to do.
My favorite books include Paul Johnson’s Modern Times and his studies of Jews, Christianity, modern intellectuals, and US History. Caroline Miller’s Lamb in His Bosum, a story of frontier life in early Ga. with woman heroine long before that was "in." Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front and Michael Shaara's Killer Angels shows the tragedy of WWI and Civil War and some similarities between defeated Germany and the defeated Confederacy. David Donlad's biographies of Lincoln, the Civil War and the Reconstruction. James McPherson's Battle Cry of Freedom on Civil War and Emory Thomas's Confederate Nation. Shelby Foote's trilogy on the war is perhaps the best written of all Civil War literature. I especailly like Tom Wolfe because he is a brilliant novelist who represents a moderately conservative viewpoint rather than the usual liberal approach so common in intellectual and university environments. His Bonfire of the Vanities is brilliant and his later A Man in Full, set in Atlanta, is alsovery good. Most of his articles are also top notch. Jacques Barzum’s From Dawn to Decadence: 500 Yrs of Western Cultural Life and his other works are very well written like the above books. Literary and journalistic types often seem to write the best history if readability is taken into account. I still enjoy the Bible. It’s so full of surprises beyond the usual summaries and catch phrases. Also have read and re-read much on Hitler and the Nazi era. I liked Germany and the Germans though my older brother was almost killed in the Battle of the Bulge. Like so many GIs, I found the Germans more like us than some of the folks more or less on our side in WW II. I have never been able to reconcile the Germans I knew and the Nazis I read about.
My interest in UGA history developed in early 1980s as the bicentennial approached, and I started work on a pictorial history of the University of Georgia.I had been at UGA since early 1960s. I continued to publish articles on UGA. Also, A Walking Tour of the University of Georgia and an up-to-date revision of A Pictorial History of UGA were published in 2000.
My research for Trivia really goes back to the early 1980s when I began to keep files on UGA over two centuries. I already had most or much of the background research done for Trivia.
Yes and no. The overall view was pretty well set in my mind, but there were many surprises in the details of some of the questions and answers.
A lot of the trivia and small facts and figures add up to a rather broad view of a school that changed hugely over time, but in many basic ways is much like other American colleges and universities, including our neighbors and rivals.
I am continuing to work on articles on the history of UGA, and I have at least thought about a sequel to Trivia if the original catches on, as I think it will. Perhaps other schools like Tech and other large neighbors could use it as a model for similar efforts.